We’re getting closer to the SWTOR launch and we’re trying tokeep you updated on everything relevant and interesting about the game. At this year’s GDC Online Principal Lead Combat Designer GeorgZoeller demonstrated some of the tools that the team uses to analyze playerfeedback and data, and then he explained how, through sophisticated technology,the team can make appropriate adjustments to the game as it wraps up betatesting and prepares for launch. Massivelycovered this story and it’s nearly 1,000 words of info on the game, much of itstraight from Zoeller himself. Massivelysays: He detailed what content creationinvolved, starting with assets, including creatures (which can take up to manyyears of work), static geometry, dynamic objects, special effects, visualeffects, and animations. Testing has gone on for more than a year, and BioWarehas gone through several iteration cycles. Each time the devs test, they gainfeedback and make necessary improvements. This is interesting to anyone currently…
Stephen Reid interview on Newsarama
Star Wars: The Old Republic‘sSenior Community lead Stephen Reid did a live interview today with Newsarama. He talked about his launchbeard (no shaving until TOR launch), about the importance of story and how muchfans are really looking forward to it. He talked about how he likes to playSmuggler but is waiting for launch and that he enjoys the Bounty Hunter. There aren’t any big reveals planned for NYCC, apparentlybut there are some “visuals” on the way. Maybe that means we will see some newtrailers or something. Another interesting bit from the interview was thatBioWare intended to announce the launch of SWTOR at NYCC but things did not go accordingto plan. Newsarama has a livestreaming event cam at New York Comic Con on their website. The fullschedule is also listed on the home page. Stay tuned here throughout the weekend for more news from NYCC.
Know your Lore: Karness Muur
The Sith Lord Karness Muur was one of the earliest Sith Lords of the old Sith Empire, creator of the Muur Talisman and the Codex of Karness Muur. Before that, he was amongst the members of the Jedi Order who turned to the dark side of the Force and caused the Second Great Schism. Biography Karness Muur was one of the Dark Jedi during the Hundred-Year Darkness, alongside XoXaan and Ajunta Pall. He seemingly was one of the creators of creatures such as Leviathans as well. Muur fought in the Battle of Corbos and was amongst the surrendering survivors. Alongside Pall and XoXaan, Muur was exiled from the Republic and arrived on Korriban with his fellow Dark Jedi. At the time, he carried a yellow-bladed protosaber. fter conquering the Sith species, Muur, like his fellow Dark Jedi, became a Sith Lord. He created the Muur Talisman to turn those in…
The Guild Sphere: Diminishing Returns
Where did your guilds name come from? The name Diminishing Returns originated from a conversation me and a friend was having about a year back. We were talking about how diminishing returns affects you in WoW and managed to somehow come to the conclusion it would make a catchy guild name. Can you give me a quick 2-3 sentance description of your guild? Diminishing Returns is planning to be an active social guild, offering all aspects of game play such as planned fun Random Events, Flashpoints and PvP. We are also focusing on making an Operations group for any members planning to take endgame more seriously. How did your guild come about? We started out as a small social guild back on WoW about a year ago. Unfortunately the server we were on was suffering a massive decrease in members. We never really managed to grow as a guild. It…
Analyst Says World of Warcraft Will Regain TOR Subscribers
Game industry analyst Michael Pachter had some new words to say about SWTOR once again. You may remember him from Pach Attack and Wedbush Securities. He recently appeared on MSNBC’s In-Game to talk about Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ and World of Warcraft™. As if the comparisons have not gotten old already, it’s now time for an industry analyst to weigh in on the topic. While he sticks to his early report that SWTOR will have 2 million or more subscribers at launch, he says that only 1 in 3 of those will come from active WoW players. He also adds that most of them will return to WoW once the initial appeal and interest in SWTOR fades. It certainly won’t be the first time that WoW has gone head-to-head with other proposed giants in the MMO field and they still came out victorious. It’s not likely that any one…
GDC Online: Collaboration Key to Effective Storytelling
Gamasutra gave us another update from GDC Online in Austin Tuesday morning and this one contained the writers at Star Wars: The Old Republic who stressed the importance of collaboration with other non-writing disciplines when it comes to SWTOR and even just to games in general. “”BioWare writers are very different from other writers in the games industry,” said Hall Hood, senior writer at the studio. “”BioWare writers come on very early in development.”” As a writer (and as someone who has met BioWare writers), I cannot agree more. In the video game industry, we writers often get contracted on to close up some dialogue after the game is deep in development, as Gamasutra explains in their post. However, with SWTOR, this was not the case. When this happens, the main story hooks are already set in stone. Writers are often used to working alone (don’t I know this one)…
Immersion Days – Stockholm
New York Comic Con isn’t the only event going on this weekend. Across the pond, Senior Writer Hall Hood, and EU Community Manage Chris Collins, will be attending inferno Online – at the worlds biggest eSports erena in Stockholm Sweden. SWTOR will be playable at this event, and the BioWare devs will have a Q&A. Danish, Norwegian and Swedish SWTOR fan sites will be at the event, so if you speak a Scandinavian language, remember to visit there sites, or ells stay tuned here, as we will do do our best to keep you updates on any news coming out from the event.
I’ve got the Moobs Like Jabba
Maroon 5 have recently been killing it in the charts on both sides of the Atlantic with their homage to the big-lipped prancing lead singer of rock icons The Rolling Stones, and now they’ve been treated to an altogether more heady accolade than the money and fame that comes with being Number One. Because thanks to Break Originals, “Moves Like Jagger” has been given a Star Wars injected make-over, and it’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen and heard recently. The first line tells you everything you need to know about the cover’s awesomeness: “He’s Jabba the Hutt, he’s a gangster, 90 per cent butt…” Profound.
Another Ackbar Potato Discovered!
About a year ago Admirall Ackbar showed himself in a potato. Now this spud resumes. I don’t know if it is a sign, but he shows up around the same time each year, so maby now he deserves his own ship, and maybe some sour cream and chives.
Facebook Image of The Week #33
It’s that time of the week again… BioWare have posted a new screenshot on the official Star Wars: The old republic Facebook page. This time of a smuggler and his pet Bowdaar. Flanked by his companion Bowdaar, a Smuggler attempts to use his wily charms on a nearby Jedi.
Tips, tricks and knowledge from SWTOR Beta
With more people playing SWTOR beta and game testing now, we are seeing more info coming out about it. While these players are still bound to the NDA, it is to be expected that some general knowledge will come out about the game. The closer we get to December release, the more info will come out to the public. On Reddit we are finding several posts started by users looking to share tips and tricks and other knowledge. Here is a snippet from one post, for example: Vehicle training costs 40 000 credits and a vehicle costs 4 000. Have at least that much by the time you hit 25. Companion weapons are upgradeable with mods, do not vendor them! You can only have one crafting skill but can have 2 gathering (may require confirmation). When in doubt, follow your class quests. More often than not your story quests will…
WoW Number One Due to Lack of Competition
For the past seven years, World of Warcraft has ruled the MMORPG scene. I know as I have played off and on since beta. I took “WoW breaks” and it seemed I would return again and again when I grew bored of whatever MMO I was playing at the time. It’s a great game despite what some haters will say but even I, a longtime fan, grew bored of it. I wanted something new, something different, something more… but I still loved many of the things that made WoW so great. Some people believe that WoW has survived for so long because it has not had any real competition. Although I love many things about the game, I have to agree on this. I’ve tried many other MMOs, including nearly every free-to-play MMORPG I could find to download to my computer and none of them had the total package that…
GDC Online: Taking Your Game Everywhere
GDC Online officially kicked of yesterday in Austin but today was the first day at the industry conference where Bioware developers were scheduled for sessions. One session that was especially interesting was “Taking Your Game Everywhere”. This panel featured BioWare’s Erik Olsen, Curse’s Donovan Duncan, ZAM’s Cody Bye and Red 5′s Mark Kern and was led by former BioWare Austin Co-Studio Manager and current Playdom exec Gordon Walton. This session addressed the idea that gamers want to be able to take their online games with them, outside of the game itself. Make sense, right? I mean it’s like a handheld but where you can still check in to your online game. It combines the appeal of games and apps for our smartphones, iPads and other mobile devices. This popular trend is something that game studios will want to get in on. Gamasutra has a summary of the panel which gives…
Character Poll on Official Forums
This character poll on the official forums about what people plan to play for their first character. It’s really interesting as a topic because I have been asking my fans, friends and readers what they will play. So to see the poll put up to try to put a number on it is pretty interesting. Some of the numbers are unexpected even though this is not a definite example of what will happen when the game launches. For example, there are more people saying they will play Human than I thought. What do you think the numbers mean? Do you think they are a good representation of what will actually happen after launch? What do you plan to play?
Compare/Contrast SWTOR to other recent MMOs
Everyone’s talking about SWTOR and if it’s going to be any good as well as how it compares to other recent MMOs. You’ve heard all of the comparisons to WoW. We’ve heard all of those a million times, it seems but World of Warcraft is not the only game it’s being compared to. One Reddit user did a write-up on how it compares to other MMOs of today in terms of gameplay, zones and maps and more. Here’s a sampling: Leveling is slow-paced. You have to do fairly significant travel and quests for each level in comparison to WoW and WHO. Quests stayed consistent through 20 levels. ll quests are accepted via cutscene and voice over, with various conversation options that add more dialog before eventually getting to the accept or deny dialog. (Dragon Age) The UI is nothing special and doesn’t appear to be customizable. The user puts both…
Screenshot Extravaganza
The second Beta weekend for Star Wars the old republic is over and tons of information has started to hit the net. So far all impressions i have been reading has been positive, and people is already missing the game. Below is a bunch of screenshots from the beta, all hosted in standard Imgur albums, so be sure to use the arrows to check out the everything the album contains.
MMOSite Previews SWTOR
As we get closer to the eventual release of SWTOR, we see more reviews and previews coming out. For those who have not yet had a chance to beta or review the game, these previews and write-ups are a great way for us to learn more about the game. But as I always warn here, you have to take it for what it’s worth, which is another person’s opinion. As far as opinions go however, we can usually rely on the gamer sites like MMOsite to give us good reviews and previews of upcoming games and that is exactly what they’ve done here. Their preview is a great overview of the game for those who do not have the time (or desire) to want to go through all the videos, trailers and other information out there about SWTOR. Here’s a snippet: One of the most prominent aspects of SW:TOR is…
C3PO: Now With Added Jive
According to a newly released video, featuring never-before-seen footage from A New Hope, not all of George Lucas’ heavy-handed edit choices made it onto the Complete Saga blu-ray release that has no doubt burned a sizeable hole in every Star Wars fan’s bank account in the past few weeks. Some, even the Great Bearded One didn’t have the guts to go with. This jaw-dropping video shows how Lucas was toying with the idea of having a “more modern, urban sounding” C-3PO, to add slightly more diversity (and thus an added injection of realism)into Episode IV. What resulted has now become legenday… The dialogue, which adds a whole new level of cool an attitude to c3PO, or C3p-DiddyO as he should perhaps now be called, was written and voiced by Brett Bayonne and published on YouTube thanks to The Distinguished Gentleman.
The SWTOR RP Class Selection Flowchart!
A Reddit user, DarthRevan, created and shared a class selection flowchart to help us all out. His post reads: I made it relatively quickly in MS Paint, so I apologize if it’s not so visually appealing. It was meant to be functional, and is a first draft of sorts. I would love any feedback, and I might even revise it if people find it helpful with some tweaks. If someone wants to make a flowchart based on gameplay & mechanics (which I also think will be very helpful), I invite them to do so because I admit a lack of expertise on that. So without further ado: The SWTOR RP Class Selection Flowchart! Edit: I also found in the process of making this chart that it is very difficult to find short statements that encapsulate the actual choices, which are more complex. I tried my best, though. Edit 2: People…
Species of Starwars: Quarren
Quarren, or “Squid Heads” as they are sometimes rudely called, are an alien species characterized by the four tentacles that protrude from their jaws. They have deep turquoise eyes, and each hand is capped with finned or suction-cup tipped fingers. They are capable swimmers, and like the squids they resemble, they are able to spit out clouds of ink as a defensive measure. Quarren hail from the planet Mon Cala, a world they share with the Mon Calamari. The Quarren evolved in the depths of Dac’s oceans. When they were first discovered by the Mon Calamari (who evolved in the shallow parts of the ocean and on Dac’s few islands ), there was conflict between the two species. Circa 4,500 BBY, the Quarren attacked the Mon Cals. However, the Mon Calamari, though less aggressive by nature, had much better technology, and won the war. In order to prevent future wars,…
The Guild Sphere: Condemned
We haven’t had a guild interview up for a few weeks. but we will try to make up for it, with a rather long interview with hte Team-Focused PvP and Raid Guild Condemned. Enjoy! Where did your guilds name come from? While our guild initially formed back in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, the current tag was not instituted until our second title Warhammer: Online. Upon our entrance to Warhammer, we began the process of selecting a new tag and worked to find a name that represented the feel of what we envisioned the guild to be. A thread was posted on our forums requesting members to post suggestions. We knew we wanted the name to be both concise and serious in nature. Once we had gathered a substantial amount of names via member submission, leadership whittled down the available options to a list of the top five. With list in hand we…
Fan Film: Dark Resurrection Vol. 0
As fans of the medium, and of Star Wars – which seems to give birth to a disproportionate amount – sometimes we have a bit of fun with some fan films that fans have cobbled together in their bedrooms, enjoying them exactly for the short-term thrills they are. But then, there are some productions that don’t really seem to fit in with that categorisation of a “fan film”, because their production quality and general execution make an absolute mockery of most that has come before. Italian film Dark Resurrection was one such production: released back in 2007 (and featured on this very site two years later), it ran circles around most other fan-made films that had captured our attentions up until that point. And now, excitingly, we can bring you the follow-up, which is not, as expected Volume 2, but a prequel, entitled Volume 0. Originally conceived as a prologue…
Intergalactic Intel: PvP vs PvE
Intergalactic Intel: PvE vs PvP “Please it’s not even hard they don’t think for themselves. It’s the same thing every week!” “It’s not you even have to try. You just pick whatever class is flavor of the month and just win.” “Let’s ask Nigel.” “Ask me what?” “Which is harder? PvE or PvP?” For as long as I have played world of warcraft the question of which is harder, and more fun has always been an issue amongst the higher end players of the game. This week I’ll delve into my experience of with both forms of game play. Player versus environment, or PvE, is a form of play in which players do battle against enemies who have been programed by the developer. This usually includes quests, leveling and dungeons. But PvE truly becomes a challenge in raiding environments where users have to fight enemies that are far stronger than…
Revan Mini Excerpts
Del Rey’s Star Wars Books Facebook page has posted a mini-excerpt from Drew Karpyshyn’s upcoming novel The Old Republic: Revan. Check it out below: I should have guessed it was you.” Revan rose from his chair to face the speaker. She wore the robes of a Jedi Archivist, though she was in fact a Jedi Master. She was young for the position, but her hair was platinum white. She had cold blue eyes, and a pale complexion that spoke of a life spent inside the Archives, sheltered from the sun. “Atris,” Revan said, silently cursing. Aparently Del Rey’s Star Wars team will continue posting mini-excerpts from upcoming Star Wars novels on their Facebook page every Thursday. Besides Del Rey’s first mini-excerpt, RandomHouse.com has also posted a new audio excerpt for the upcoming novel as narrated by Marc Thompson. Listen to it below: