We previously wrote about all the Star Wars events and guest attending to this years New York Comic Con, but yesterday BioWare posted an official update regarding Star Wars: The Old Republic presence there. Players who come by the booth will have the opportunity to try out both the Alderaan and Huttball Warzones. New York Comic-Con attendees will also have the chance to play through some of the Origin Worlds content on the showfloor. In addition, three separate panels will be held to give fans and medium more detailed information. Those who come by the booth will have the opportunity to experience both the Alderaan and Huttball Warzones. New York Comic-Con attendees will also have the chance to play through some of our Origin Worlds content on the showfloor. If your not able to attend the the official avent, BioWare will be holding a Meet and greed on Wednesday, October 12th 2011: The BioWare team…
Drew Karpyshyn on the “Revan” and “Exile” story lines
Drew Karpyshyn had some words for the haters on his personal site. He discussed the “Revan” and “Exile” story lines as well as perspectives on KOTOR, ToR, and his upcoming novel. It’s a long but worthy read, especially since the ending paragraphs are my favorite. In this update he has details about the NYCC schedule as well as a rant about some Star Wars fans taking things out of context and blowing them out of proportion. We brought you the story recently of the supposed “leaked copy” of the Revan novel, set to release in November and the accusations that it “attempted to retcon elements of KOTOR 2: The Sith Lords”. I had no proof that this message board member really read the Revan novel, although he did supply a photo of what was supposed to be the cover of the proof copy or something. Regardless, I prefer to make…
How SWG Will Be Won
The last days of Star Wars: Galaxies are drawing near and the game plans to close off “with a gigantic PvP throwdown for dominance” that will tell us all who runs the galaxy- Empire or Rebels. Of course some fans are saying that this is not the end and that SWG will live on- even if unofficially- but for the sake of technicalities, the end is coming. So how will this official end of it all battle be scored? How will SWG be won? Winning the Galactic Civil War explains in detail: “Meanwhile, let’s say Region Two is worth 3%, and that in this same period of time three Imperials earn 50 GCW [Galactic Civil War] points in the region and no Rebels show up at all. Region Two would give the Imperials a full 3% in the galaxy score for next to no effort compared to Region One. All…
BioWare Hinted the Possibility of a Mass Effect MMO
How great would it be to have a Mass Effect MMO? There are certainly a lot of fans out there rooting for this very thing right as we speak. While BioWare is busy cranking out SWTOR to have it ready to ship by the promised date in December, we hear rumors that there could be more online titles in the future. It would be a win-win for BioWare and gamers alike if SWTOR was a huge success that led to more MMO titles in the future… possibly even a Mass Effect MMO. BioWare heads Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk seem open to the potential idea and even hint around that it might be considered in the future. “You never know,” Zeschuk replied to the Mass Effect MMO query by Industry Gamers. . “”I think once The Old Republic is done, we’ll take a fresh look at the market….
Friday Update: Companion Character Dev Blog
In todays second Friday update Senior Game Designer William Wallace has written a blog entry that delves into the subject of companion AI and how it will affect the group dynamic. In particular he touches on the ability of the various companions to fill the role of a player character during more challenging quests. Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ features a large amount of group content, including Heroic Quests (challenging quests requiring 2 or 4 players to complete) and Flashpoints (highly engaging instanced story content for groups of 4 players). One benefit we’re seeing from our new, fully featured companions is additional flexibility about how players approach group content. A full group in The Old Republic always has four players. Any player leaving the group can be substituted by a companion of the group’s choice, with the party leader in control of which player gets to use their companion.
Friday Update: Choose Your Side: Jedi Knight vs. Bounty Hunter
It’s another double header Friday update as we get to see BioWares first episode of the new four-part “Choose Your Side” video series, in which two classes are pitted against each other one on one. During the video members of the Star Wars: The Old Republic team choosing their favorite class in a one-on-one fight. The first episode pits the Jedi Knight against the Bounty Hunter. In “Choose Your Side,” members of the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ development team debate the merits of the various in-game classes to see who will truly reign supreme. In the first installment in this four-part series, the noble Jedi Knight squares off against the nefarious Bounty Hunter. In support of the Jedi Knight is Senior Writer Hall Hood and Designer Austin Peckenpaugh, while Senior System Designer Pete Warner and Writer Randy Begel defend the Bounty Hunter. Take a look at the Jedi Knight…
SWTOR Gameplay Impressions from EuroGamer Expo 2011
The guys over at GamerEuphoria uploaded there game play impressions from this years EuroGamer. They call the game disappointing but with potential. We must be near the tails end of info coming out of last weeks Euro Gamer Expo 2011 now, but check out the video below, and tell us what you think.
BioWare Talks Future of RPGs and Narrative Maturation
What does the future hold for Bioware? They have made a name for themselves in the world of RPGs with titles like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Star Wars. What might the future hold for them and the genre? The game environments are changing dramatically and companies that want to keep up will need to be able to move with the progression. Can BioWare continue their trend of successful RPGs? In speaking to Sarcastic Gamer during the Eurogamer 2011 Expo, BioWare boss Ray Muzyka said they intend to “broaden the genre.” These days, there are different approaches to take and more options available. “The vision for us is a broadening of the genre. We see a lot of other genres incorporating features of RPGs and in turn RPGs are incorporating features of other genres. There are more action elements, there’s different ways to tell a story, there’s different ways to…
Not Everyone Loves SWTOR
Not everyone who has tried SWTOR loves it. In fact, some people just don’t like it at all. Others point out some positives but their overall impressions are well… not that impressed. The latter would be the case of Lewis B. of Tap Repeatedly, who basically calls it a WoW clone. What do you think? Is he on to something or just full of crap? Lewis posts his impressions on the Tap Repeatedly site on Wednesday and while he had a couple of positives to add, he seemed mostly disappointed with the game. Let’s start by explaining that he played it at the Eurogamer Expo demo and his playtime was limited. He explains: The first was that the booth was surprisingly small, with Alienware laptops setup in two circles just in front of the over 18’s area. Queues were predictably long and so the demo time was quite limited (around fifteen minutes)….
Character Creation videos
Beta Footage have uploaded a few Character Creation videos showing Rattataki, Chiss and Mirialan An interesting view if your a groing to play one of these species, but also an interesting watch if you have been following the development of the game graphics. Chiss Random Character Creation: Mirialan Jedi Consular Creation: Rattataki Random Character Creation:
Daniel Erickson interview with a French fan site
The French guild Chimaera uploaded a video with Daniel Erickson from his French community visit last week. Here’s the recap for you: Daniel Erickson walked onto the stage with two Storm Troopers (fun!) to talk about Star Wars the Old Republic. He started by listing off many achievements they have reached with this game including one of the Guinness Book of World Records for “Biggest Voiceover Production” in entertainment history. With accomplishments like that, there’s no wonder why so many fans are amped up for this game’s release in December. The release date for Europe is December 22, 2011. Erickson was quoted as saying “The biggest story RPG in history”, which gives me a lot of hope for the depth of the lore that we will find when we boot up our computers and run Star Wars: The Old Republic for the first time, and hopefully every time thereafter. In…
All SWTOR beta invites have gone out
Stephen Reid tweeted this announcement today, “All invites for SWTOR Beta Testing Weekend 2 have now been sent.” He added that further info could be found on the official forums. The announcement has brought about mixed emotions. There are many who are disappointed as they didn’t get an invite to beta testing and this news seems to mean that they will not get their chance- at least not now. While we are counting down the weeks until the game’s official release, many people are hoping to get to play that week of beta. With Weekend 2 invites out, many people are flocking to the boards hoping to find new information released by weekend 1 players. It’s currently unclear whether or not there will be future weekends of beta play testing available or how many more, if any, players will get to experience the game before December. Reid previously announced that…
Facebook Image of The Week #32
It’s Wednesday again and time for new screenshot on the official BioWare Facebook page. This time BioWare chooses to recycle an older screenshot ( or at least the settings) that has been around for a while. Stille a nice screenshot. A lone Jedi Knight does battle against a disciple of the dark side. Remember this image??
More beta testing weekends upcoming
If you haven’t had a chance to beta test SWTOR yet, you will be happy about the news posted on the official SWTOR website today. There are more beta weekends coming for October. The news post explains: “Beta Testing Weekends for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ began earlier this month and during our first weekend, we invited more players into testing than we’ve ever invited before in a single weekend! Now we’re getting ready for another Beta Testing Weekend, starting on October 7th and finishing on October 10th. With increased invite numbers from the first weekend, even more of you will get to play The Old Republic.” It also says not to worry if you still don’t get in this batch because more testing opportunities will be coming before the launch of the game. So there are still a couple of months left to have an opportunity for game testing…
Bioware sent out their Official apology email
The great Bioware email snafu of last week had some SWTORnerds raging that they were tricked and teased- being made to believe they gotinto a game testing/beta when it was really just a goof-up in the email office. So what can BioWare do to make the wrong right? Well, say “sorry”of course. Which they have done, in the form of an official email. The apology email read: “OnSeptember 29th, you received two emails regarding the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Game Testing Program.These emails were sent to you by mistake. This was due to an internal error andnot the result of hacking or malware. Please be assured that no personalinformation was compromised. We are sorry for any confusion this may havecaused. Please note that receipt of these e-mails does not affect your chancesto be invited to test the game at a later date.Between now and launch, we will be conducting additional…
Stand Up To Cancer’s Star Wars Parody
It might have been around for a while now, but this video from Stand Up To Cancer is both funny and very worth, thanks to its championing of a massively important cause, in the shape of cancer awareness, so it’s still worthy of note now. Featuring the cause’s Celebrity Ambassadors – Aziz Ansari, Zach Galifianakis, Bill Hader, Ed Helms, Ken Jeong, Jaime King, Seth Rogen, Andy Samberg and Emma Stone – along with Star Wars actor, and all round shouty bad-ass Samuel L. Jackson – the video recreates classic Star Wars scenes with a comic spin. My personal favourite moment is Bill Hader’s impression of a Taun Taun. Chillingly realistic… Stand Up To Cancer’s mission statement reads as follows, and needless to say, it is a cause that deserves attention, and as much investment as everyone can spare: Stand Up To Cancer is a new initiative created to accelerate groundbreaking…
French and German SWTOR Testing Is Now in Action
It is now official- the remaining launch locations for SWTOR are now getting in on the game testing action. As of today, the official SWTOR_FR and SWTOR_DE twitter accounts, a batch of invitations have been sent out to those users who have applied for the beta. This means if you live in these zones and applied to be considered for the beta testing phases of SWTOR, you might have gotten or will be getting your beta invite soon. According to Lars Malcharek, further invitations to EU game testing will be sent out to German and French speaking players only. He also said, “In the coming weeks we will invite more players to the testing.” This is great news for the people who are waiting and hoping to get an invite. This news also means that SWTOR is yet another step closer to finally reaching launch. While they have already said…
BioWare Founders say “We make the decisions, not EA”
Many fans are critical of BioWare when it comes to certain inadequacies that blame on Electronic Arts. But the founders have a stern message for those doubters- they are still calling the shots on the games they make. “I always chuckle because we are EA, we’re BioWare — we’re both, and we still have huge autonomy in terms of what we do,” co-founder Greg Zeschuk recently told Eurogamer. BioWare founders say they make the decisions, not parent company, EA. They appear passionate about the fact that they still have a direct hand in the games that they are creating. There are some things that have changed, however. “Way, way back, years ago, we didn’t even consider those [commercial elements], we just made stuff,” Zeschuk explains. Point well taken. Back then, the commercial elements also did not matter so much. Video games were not such big business. The market was smaller…
NY Comic Con: Star Wars Guests & Events
A few weeks ago we reported that BioWare will have two Panels At NYCC’11. Now – Thanks to theforce.net the full program of this years big event in the big apple has been revealed. Star Wars Guests Mark Hamill – do you really need an explanation? Ashley Eckstein – Ashoka Tano voice on TCW Peter Mayhew – OT and PT Chewbacca Katie Cook – SW artist Spencer Brinkerhoff – SW artist More artist, comic and entertainment guests can be viewed here and many are also noted in the event schedule below. Star Wars Events and Panels Star Wars: The Blueprints by J.W. Rinzler Date: Friday, October 14 10:45 am – 11:45 am Location: 1A03 Description: New York Times best-selling author and Lucasfilm Executive Editor J.W. Rinzler (author of The Making of Star Wars) discusses his latest book–about the unsung heroes of the Star Wars movies: the production designers, set dressers,…
A Light in the Darkness Completed
Great news Star Wars fans: The Star Wars fan film we told you about last year is now completed and available for your viewing online. This is an excellent film that I enjoyed very much. I don’t want to give away spoilers but you really need to see the full thing for yourself. I’m not the only one who was impressed. Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge 2011 – A Light in the Darkness (Part One) won two awards from Atom.com in 2011 for “Best Fan Fiction” and “Audience Choice.” Renovation Film Festival – Best Fan Film 2011 This film was created for the love of filmmaking and also for the love of Star Wars. It was a volunteer effort by cast and crew and is an excellent high quality, low budget film that faced many challenges to create but came out on top. It’s well worth your time to see…
First look at the SWTOR Collector’s Edition Store
Edit: This is just in from a beta tester Aparently the elevators take you to the VIP section: We aren’t allowed up the elevator at the moment. When you step on the elevator it boots you off immediately saying that you need a VIP card to access the elevator. No one has actually been able to go up inside of the VIP area that I’m aware of. I’m a CE owner and beta tester and I’m not allowed up there. The area around the elevators is NOT the VIP area, that is just a general social hub/cantina area in the middle of the new space station hub. Anyone is allowed in that area, just not up the elevators to the penthouse room. This video was mailed to us last night. It shows the area that will be available for people who ordered the Special edition or the collectors edition of SWTOR….
Video: Totalbiscuit – Level 14 Jedi Sentinel PVP – Huttball
At the Eurogamer Expo 2011, TotalBiscuit was able to play a game of Huttball using the Jedi Sentinel class, a heavy melee damage dealer. As always “The Angry Brit” has some awesome commentary good for a laugh. The video is filmed at 25fps, 1080i resolution, so it’s really decent footage. TotalBiscuit has commented a few times about the game, here is one of the most interesting points: There is a scaling issue, far as I can tell, due to how PvP works. At lower levels, you have too much health and not enough damage. Bioware is aware of it and they’re tweaking it, but it’s particularly frustrating with melee classes. If I’m chopping you up with a lightsabre, you should probably die. With the Trooper I can stand at range mowing fools down with area of effect sprays, grenades and such, plus I can take a beating up close and do massive…
Intergalactic Intel: Choosing a Role
What should I play? Jedi ConsularGrowing up I never knew what I wanted to be. And as a twenty-two-year-old college senior I kind of have an idea. Choosing your role in a community is very difficult. You want to be able to support yourself and live happily while still being a good person. The same thing can be said about any game with a class system. Do you want to be the guy who charges in head first? Or do you want to be the one executing enemies? Or maybe you’re better off on the side lines supporting your allies? In MMO’s we have always run the classes by something known as the Holy Trinity; tanks, healers, and DPS. Tanks: people whose goal are to take damage and keep enemies off of their allies. Healers: people who support and make sure that their allies stay alive throughout the encounter. DPS…
Darth Vader Is a Yes Man
Ever noticed how many times Darth Vader says No? Obviously it’s one more time than it used to be, thanks to George Lucas’ broken brain that inspires him to make precisely the opposite creative decisions that everyone wants him to, but even without that edited in addition, it’s a lot. Hardly the most cheerful of fellows, thanks probably to uniform chaffing, Vader has infamously made a name for himself with a fairly closed mind: it’s the Dark Side or nothing for this particular Sith. But now, thanks to the editing skills of the inimitable OneMinuteGalactica (who we love around these parts), Darth has decided to change his ways, and follow in the footsteps of British writer Danny Wallace, and rubber-faced acting talent Jim Carey by saying Yes a lot more. Okay so it’s hugely silly, but I couldn’t help but smile at it.