Even the Queen loves Star Wars. Well, sort of anyway – because The Telegraph are reporting that she is set to share space on a set of coins with the cast of the franchise. According to the British newspaper, characters including Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Yoda and a cast of other heroes and villains from a galaxy far, far away, will feature alongside our own beloved Queen on a set of 40 coins issued by the South Pacific island state of Niue. The remote Polynesian state – population 1,400 people – normally uses New Zealand currency, but they’re bound to be the envy of the Star Wars loving world when the coins are eventually released. The coin sets are aimed at collectors and investors around the world in a bid to boost Niue’s comparatively grim economy – if only every other government was that logical and proactive! The price for…
Community Highlight – Dimbo, Mandalorian Girl, Tormonger, and Warmadden
FTW Broadcasting featured some great sites in the SWTOR community in their Community Highlight segment. They start with Dimbo The Trooper a SWTOR Fan-fiction writer and self named “TORWhore” who is the author of the weekly Dimbo’s Radar. If you aren’t already familiar with Bootleg Radio, Dimbo guest stars on one of the their podcasts, Keyboard Heroes. One of the most active SWTOR Fan-fiction writers Mandalorian girl also gets featured. There seems to be a writing theme in this video because Awall announces a writing contest that is being launch by Tormonger.com and Warmadden. Grab your pens (or keyboards) and check out their sites for me details if you want to participate. For those of you out there that like to play MMOs by the numbers Tormonger has a TheoryCraft 101 video that breaks down the numbers behind SWTOR in an easy to understand way. The part of this video…
Ridiculously Awesome Star Wars Sushi
Sushi art is something I have enormous respect for. Mostly because I envy anyone who can spend so long working on food without eating it (I know, I have a problem), and thanks to the great team over at Obvious Winner I can share exactly why I admire the high-end skills so much. Japanese sushi chef, Okitsugu Kado – an avid Star Wars fan (who calls himself a Jedi) – has been busy with his carving tools producing some frankly startingly Star Wars sushi art, some of which you can see below. The pieces take hours to make, and unsurprisingly aren’t available to consumption (though they do look delicious), instead taking their place on display, presumably until they start to smell. Here are the picks of the bunch… And here is a video of the man at work. Incredible stuff.
SWTOR Fan Friday and Gamescom Plans
It’s Friday witch means it’s the last work day of the week ( for most of us) and time for BioWare to update us on Star Wars: the old republic. Ihave to admit that this Friday is a kind of slow one, as one of today’s updates is simply an announcement outlining the team’s Gamescom plans. Attendees will get hands-on play time on each of the Origin Worlds, and lucky players will get to try out the Alderaan player-vs-player Warzone as we wrote about ealier today. The festivities taking place include an EA press conference on Tuesday, August 16 at 10am EDT. As an added bonus to those members of the The Old Republic community, we will be housing a special area within the stand where you can play Warzone PvP. This area is designed to allow members of the community to play Warzone matches in a slightly more relaxed…
SWTOR Room Invites are Out for GamesCom PvP
All applicants who requested to play “Alderaan Civil War PvP Warzone at GamesCom” need to take notice. On August 10, 2011, invites were sent out to all the lucky gamers who were accepted for this big event. However, some of the invites contained errors that need to be corrected concerning the day in which you are to participate. A “system error” is responsible for the mix up and some of the invitations were emailed out with the wrong slot time. These invited certain gamers to play in the event taking place on Thursday but they had been assigned to the session taking place on Friday. It’s important to get this mix up taken care of so everyone will show up at the right time. SWTOR issued this message “If you received an invite to take part in the event on Thursday, but you requested to play on Friday, please check…
How the Launch of SWTOR Could affect WoW
Should WoW be concerned that the launch of SWTOR is rapidly approaching? According to Tenton Hammer, World of Warcraft has lost 300,000 players during their last quarter and the number of subscribers fell the quarter before that as well. Some may speculate that WoW is on the way out and SWTOR is on the way in but that’s unlikely. However, World of Warcraft may be in for some major changes to help keep players interested. Some of the players that have recently left WoW will more than likely begin playing The Old Republic when it’s released. However, for the gaming industry, having a variety of titles is what makes it thrive and no “one title” can rule MMOs. This has a lot to do with the fact that each MMO has its own “cult” or fan base that keeps it alive. WoW has its loyal fans that will never stray…
The Force is with EA: Analyst Predicts Over 3 Million SWTOR Units sold
Yes… 3 MILLION! $ERTS stock has risen due to SWTOR pre-orders. EA is doubling projected sales from 1.5 million copies to 3 million copies. This is big news for EA, BioWare and anyone who is a fan of SWTOR or has an invested interest in the game. An article today on Forbes, an analyst discusses the rising predictions in sales and the potential success of SWTOR, which may be larger than anyone anticipated. ERTS this morning is up 24 cents, or 1.4%, to $17.86. Cowen analyst Doug Creutz says: “Since ‘Star Wars‘ became available for pre-orders three weeks ago, it has tracked very strongly on the Amazon.com top-selling video games list,” he writes in a research note. “We believe it is trending as well or better than two of the top-selling PC titles last year, Blizzard’s ‘Starcraft 2‘ and ‘World of Warcraft: Cataclysm‘, both of which went on to sell…
Star Wars XXX: A Porn Parody Teaser
Generally speaking, the idea of a teaser trailer for a porn film quite frankly occurs to me as something like putting wheels on an ice-cream. Entirely unnecessary. Because all you need to push in order to sell delicious filth to me is the fact that there’s boobs in it. There, simple, Sold! But with Star Wars XXX: A Porn Parody those rules are there to be bent, because even without the Q&A, that film is an event in itself. Made by Axel Braun, who has some serious geek credentials behind him by the look of this teaser and what we’ve heard so far on the project, it is an affectionate porn parody like nothing that has come before. Pun completely intended. So here it is, a month before release – the official teaser trailer… Rember also to check out the interview we did with Grand Moff Tarkin aka Eli Cross
Star Wars n00bs Be Warned: There Be Pirates!
A story broke last week at the New York Times concerning a fiendish plot by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to raise badly needed cash, by unleashing young hackers on South Korea’s immensely popular online gaming sites, and it got me thinking about the potential perils facing SWTOR new-comers. Since MMORPGs became big business, it was somewhat inevitable that Virtual Crime would become part and parcel of the communities. Unfortunately it is likely that that rogue element will also find its way into the SWTOR gaming world as soon as the game gets a release (in 2030 probably), with rackets set up to bully players into paying protection or illegally trading commodities. They are a fetid boil on the backside of MMORPGs and they must be stopped, or at least resisted with all of our power. The most likely crime SWTOR will face is farming, and thanks to innovations suggested…
The Guild Sphere: Compendium
It’s Thursday and therefor time to put a spotlight on the second guild this week. This time Compendium – A republic guild focusing on both PVP and PVE took the time to answer our question. Enjoy the read: Where did your guild’s name come from? I love unique and uncommon words that sound really catchy. The word Compendium has several meanings, but the meaning I like to think of is “an inventory or gathering” – in this case a gathering of quality gamers that are share common interests and goals for The Old Republic. Can you give me a quick 2-3 sentence description of your guild? Compendium is a tight-knit, family style guild and we’re looking to have a small-medium sized group of core members during our existence in The Old Republic. We offer both PvE and PvP activities but do not support role-playing. We offer a great social environment through several…
Star Wars Fan Movie Spirit of Fandom Award Winner: The Tentacle Trap
I can’t resist sharing these Star Wars Fan Movie Awards winners, so I won’t. This latest addition to the winner’s gallery is that which walked away with the Spirit of Fandom Award, and was made by Caribbean-based filmmaker James Austen. The Tentacle Trap tells the tale of a small band of Clone pirates who are captured by a foe far worse than Darth Vader while on a treasure-hunting trip to a leafy planet. Anyway, here it is… Austen spoke to the Official Star Wars blog about the specific difficulties presented by working with stop-motion and Lego: Remembering not to be a clumsy oaf was the biggest challenge to overcome! Halfway through a scene I’d often knock the camera or the set and have to start all over again. I lost hours making that mistake. And surprised with the software that is now available, and the help, advice and resources online….
Facebook Image of The Week #24
BioWare has once again updated the official Facebook page with a new screenshot of Star Wars: the old republic. This time we get to see a screenshot of the planet Voss. The planet Voss is steeped in war between its native species, the Voss and Gormak. Somone also leaked some sweet sweet beta gameplay of the Imperial agent.
Not Getting Beta with SWTOR Pre-order
I have heard complaints of people pre-ordering SWTOR and then not getting the beta time they were promised or gamers confused about when they will get their beta access after pre-ordering the game. Part of the reason for this confusion can be tracked down to salespeople at the game stores, specifically in the U.S. My sister works at Gamestop and she purchased a pre-order for her boyfriend because she was told there was beta time when you ordered. Then her manager at GameStop told her that you get a week of beta access but you don’t get to choose your week and they will tell you when you get your access. A search online in the forums said other people were told the same thing, several by Gamestop employees and managers. But this isn’t the truth about the SWTOR pre-order. If you’ve been promised beta play time by a salesperson…
The Lost Suns Issue 3 Preview
If you’re following the SWTOR: The Lost Suns comic series, you’ll be excited to hear that Newsarama has a full, 6 page preview of the comic so you can check it out for yourself. I have been hooked on the series since I got the first issue, hand-signed, in person from Alexander Freed himself. You don’t even have to be a traditional comic fan to appreciate the story of these comics. The series is written by BioWare Senior Writer Alexander Freed and it follows the story of Theron Shan, son of Jedi Master Satele Shan. It follows Shan’s quest to stop the war from restarting and the series gives us a good back story to the game, SWTOR and an idea of the type of storytelling we can expect from BioWare in SWTOR. Even if you have yet to read the first two issues of the Lost Suns, then you…
VideoGamer.com Interviews Daniel Erickson on SWTOR
We’re all about fun stuff related to SWTOR and getting to send that info on to you. This is why we especially love Q&A sessions and lots of them come out at events like Comic-Con or shortly after. We found a great interview with Daniel Erickson over on VideoGamer.com and even if you think you already know everything he has to say, there may be some new bits in this article. Here, Erickson talks design decisions, negative responses and the future of SWTOR which has yet to launch but is selling pre-order records for BioWare. It’s an MMORPG making records before it’s even been released. How is that for awesome? So anyway, here’s a snippet of the interview, courtesy of VideoGamer.com: Q: At Comic-Con this year, one of the Star Wars: The Old Republic developers said the team hopes the game will last for decades. Can any game legitimately have…
SWTOR Sith sniper Tree
We got more Imperial argent goodies for you today. Not only we able to show you the Sith Assassin Tree earlier today, but thanks to AlterSwtor we now also got the Sniper tree. Once again the tree is presented via a video, but you can also click the images below the video and check it all out one by one – very image heavy though. Hope you enjoy! video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player
SWTOR Sith Assasin Tree
Yesterday we posted the sith juggernaut and sith inquisitor skill trees, but we got more goodies for you today. The guys over at Alterswotor has posted the Sith Assasin Tree in a video format. Unfortuantly this make sit much harder to get an overview over the whole talent tree, but it is better then nothing. Still hope you enjoy
SWTOR Tester reviews his 20 days long test session
Betacake brought us another beta tester review, this one from someone who tested for 20 days before the write-up. This is certainly a significant period of time to give a sufficient review but of course, it’s just one person’s opinions. These are one person’s ideas of what is good and bad in the game but still, it is very useful when learning more about SWTOR and what we can all expect. Here’s a snippet of the intro: First to my characters: So far I have played 5 characters and followed the story. As far as possible I have done all the quests I have found and did not skip any – unless group quests I did not get a group for. The list of my characters are: Sith Inquisitor: Sorcerer – lvl 27 – currently on Nar Shaddaa (story line for that planet finished – on her way to Tatooine) Sith Warrior:…
IA and Smuggler to get the ability to put your entire group in stealth
SWTOR Smuggler art by superhawkins Every now and then you hear something about a game or a class in a game that is so awesome, you just cannot wait to try it out for yourself. This was the case when I read that the IA and Smuggler in SWTOR would get the ability to put the entire group in stealth. Georg Zoeller dropped this piece of golden information on the forums today after talks about the Smuggler not getting enough love as a class in the game. So Zoeller posts: “As a non force user class, the smuggler is definitely a bit of a renegade / rogue – something a lot of players won’t try for a while as they explore their Force & Lightsaber wielding Star Wars fantasy. That said, it’s one of the most versatile classes… and that was before we gave the Smuggler the ability to ‘Smuggle’…
SWTOR sith juggernaut skill trees
Few hours ago we posted the sith inquisitor skill tree, that was going around the internet. Aparently we are def dump and blind since we missed that the sith juggernaut skill tree witch is also being shared across IRC. So with no further ado, I bring to you, the sith juggernaut skill tree, brought to you by alterswtor.com I have to admit it looks very similar to World of Warcraft warrior skill tree, which I’m not to fund about. A beta tester told me you have 41 talent points at level 50 btw.
SWTOR sith inquisitor skill trees
The skill trees for the sith inquisitor hit the interwebs earlier today and alterswtor.com was the first of the leaking sites to host them. It’s missing a tree from either sorc or assassin though. Is it just me or do they look like they’re gonna play a little like an Elemental Shaman from WoW? Little melee thrown in with other skills too. Definitely gonna pick an inquisitor now.
The Guild Sphere: Danes of Darkness
M0fu from DanesOfDarkness.dk took some time to answer a few questions about his guild, for this week first guild column. M0fu is also a writer on swtor.dk and like me from Denmark. So it’s a great pleasure I can introduce, the Danes of Darkness: Where did your guilds name come from? – Well, when we first decided to create an all Danish Empire guild, we wanted a name that would suggest we where from Denmark, and at the same time where kinda evil (as we are a dark side guild) :). We let the members make suggestions, made a poll, and in the end Danes Of Darkness won. Can you give me a quick 2-3 sentance description of your guild? – Sure: “Danes Of Darkness is a Empire, PVP, 18+ guild. We are 100% danish, and therefor only Danes are accepted. We focus on the socializing, Flashpoints, Operations, end-game, and most important…
STAR WARS: The Old Republic: Level 50 Jedi Sage Review
STAR WARS: The Old Republic: Level 50 Jedi Sage Review Fun stuff from BetaCake this week for those who don’t spoilers and want to learn more about SWTOR. This review was sent via email to Betacake and includes detailed info about playing a level 50 Jedi Sage. Betacake writes: “The following article was sent to me through e-mail and its a review by a tester who played the Jedi Sage class and reached level 50 with it. I must warn you, he gives the game a subjective review and you should not take it for granted. Things he might hate in the game, might seem like the best thing ever to you. Either way, its a good write up, enjoy !” The review is pretty long and detailed but be warned: SPOILER ALERT. Here is a snippet: Since the test phase is ending and people…
EA’s EA2D Studio Now ‘BioWare San Francisco’
EA’s EA2D Studio is now ‘BioWare San Francisco’! Electronic Arts made the announcement to Gamasutra confirming that it is now a division of BioWare and confirmed the new name. EA2D Studio was originally founded as a small browser-based site designed for casual titles. Its goal was to create high-quality social games that allowed devoted gamers to connect over different platforms, which include but are not limited to, playing online and on mobile devices. EA2D studio is known for creating “Mirror’s Edge 2D” and the prominent “Dragon Age Legends”, in which Soren Johnson (Former Civilization series lead designer) helped EA2D studio design. They’re also responsible for developing the tactical game “RPG Dragon Age Journeys” and the platformer game “The Fancy Pants Adventures”, which was ported to both the “Xbox Live Arcade” and then to the “PlayStation Network”. This big move comes after some changes took place at the studio and executive…