The Old Republic’s community has been in a frenzy of activity in the past 12 hours. First leaked information about the space combat has emerged from various sources. First, German fansite got a hold of an issue of PC Action magazine (a German publication) that provided details on space combat. Our friends at Ask a Jedi had the details on this as well as the translation of the most important information in the German article.

A heated discussion ensued on the official forums. All of the space combat discussions are being consolidated by Bioware moderators into one monstrous thread with a poll that asks you “Are you happy with the Space Combat details?” (Yes/No/Need more info).

The biggest news is certainly the appearance of the scans from the upcoming PC Gamer magazine. When space combat was announced it was said that PC Gamer will have the exclusive details on the feature and this is the article that details it. There is a page missing but you can find all the most important info without trouble. The scans were found at Darth Hater’s forums

Here’s the recap of the most important info:

• Space combat is a tunnel shooter mini game (your ship is propelled along a predefined path and always moving forward while you only choose which weapons to fire and at what targets – there is no free flight like in X-Wing vs Tie Fighter)
• There will be 6 different ship types for 8 classes (Jedi Consular and Jedi Knight share the same ship type and so do the Inquisitor and Sith Warrior)
• Space combat is a single player instance (at launch at least)!
• You can collide with asteroids or other ships
• There will be a main quest that will give a token reward you can exchange for items and side quests that will rotate and feature escort missions of different ships or destroy a randomly chosen ship
• Each mission is 2-8 minutes long
• Blasters and missiles only (and only power of these can be upgraded as you earn rewards)
• Character abilities and stats do not affect space combat

That’s it folks. Two to eight minute missions with you moving your ship on X and Y axis while mouse targeting and shooting your enemies. A little action packed mini-game to break the mold. I bet all those that said space combat will resemble KOTOR’s turret mini game are doing their: “I told you so”.

My hunch is that there will be a video of the space combat missions running at GamesCom and since we will be attending we will be bringing you all of the news right from the spot.

BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk gave an interview to BBC’s Daniel Emery discussing the past of Bioware as well as its Star Wars future. Also mentioned in the interview was that:

The massive multiplayer online role-play game (MMORPG) Star Wars: The Old Republic is nearing completion.

While the Canadian developer BioWare would not be drawn on an exact date, it said that spring 2011 “was not unrealistic”.

“It’s getting closer, it’s coming down the pipe,” the firm’s founder Greg Zeschuk told BBC News.

You can see the video interview below or read the whole article on the BBC’s web site. (thanks to CorrelianRun that shared this news on their Twitter account)

In other news, Dark Horse is starting to ship Threat of Peace Part #2. You can follow the new adventures of Jedi Satele Shan, Master Orgus, and Lieutenant Tavus if you order the comic on this page. News spotted at swtorstrategies.

Videogamer.com has an interview with Bioware co-founder Dr. Greg Zeschuk published on their site. They cover a range of topics concerning Bioware games. What cought our eye is the following statement:

Well, we need to sell 10 million units. That’s actually the new target, right? We do Top 10 games, our stuff is quite successful.
…
We always joke that if we only do half as well as Blizzard on Star Wars: The Old Republic, we’ll be quite satisfied. We’ve been very fortunate. I always joke about that, but…

You can read the full interview here.

Click the image for full size

Following yesterday’s announcement of the existence of space battles in The Old republic the whole community is very excited and is eagerly awaiting more details on the feature. What we know for sure is that PC Gamer magazine will have an exclusive insider look at the feature in their August 17th issue. Above you can see what the cover will look like. We’re scouring the net for more information and we’re eagerly awaiting the rumored video from G4TV.

The long awaited panel “Beyond Solo” at this year’s Comic Con convention held in San Diego has finally happened and boy, what a newsworthy event it was. Thanks to our fansite compadres at Darth Hater and Ask a Jedi we were able to read the news as they happened. Here’s a recapitulation of the most important thing we have learned during the panel.

• Ship customization and space combat
• Space combat is an alternative gameplay experience to the primary game of storytelling, questing, and ground-based combat.
• You fly your personal ship to various “hot spots” on your galaxy map (Speculation: no free roam space flight exists but rather “instanced” hot spots)
• In these hot spots you will blast your way through asteroid fields, enemy fighters, frigates, destroyers, and a variety of other obstacles that will evoke memories of some of the great Star Wars™ space battles
• The story arcs are both worldly and galactic. (You will have quests arcs specific to a single planet and more global, galactic, story arcs)
• You can not switch factions.
• World quests, “flashpoints” (?) and story arcs are included
• You can customize your companions with gear similar to Mass Effect
• Only one companion can join you on missions.
• Your player name is in your companion’s nameplate
• Each class story as big as original KoTOR, and no one shares content! (that is 8 KOTOR games right there)
• Mandalorians play a large part in the game.
• Some alien race restrictions when picking classes
• Progression will be very important and can be achieved through tons of gear and crafting, etc. (you will need to “work” for these rewards)
• You will be able to determine the build of a character based on visual style (Jedi consular with double bladed lightsaber is DPS while single bladed consular is healer)

We expect videos and images to pour in from the event and we’ll update this post accordingly. There is also a Dev meet later on today and we expect more tidbits from there, but I am guessing not as big as the space combat reveal.

There is a live blog of the SWTOR Comic Con panel in progress at Darth Hater. The first thing mentioned from the panel is this:

1:03PM PST – James Ohlen: You can customize your ship and engage in space combat. October PC Gamer will reveal more details.

You can follow the updates on Darth Hater as they happen at this location.

Also worth mentioning is that world quests, flashpoints, and story arcs included. We’ll update this post as more information becomes available.

UPDATE: Ask a Jedi is also following the panel live and you can read their impressions here.
Sean Dahlberg just confirmed Space combat on the official forums.

UPDATE 2: Mos Eisley Radio reports:

Space combat is going to be “an alternative gameplay experience to the primary game of storytelling, questing, and ground-based combat” …
We’ll be using our personal ships to “blast through asteroid fields, enemy fighters, frigates, destroyers, and a variety of other obstacles”

UPDATE 3: Alex Freed: Can customize companion via equipment similar to Mass Effect; one companion out at a time, and your player name is in your companion’s nameplate.
Each class story as big as original KoTOR, and no one shares content! (from Ask a Jedi)

UPDATE 4:
(from Darth Hater live blog)

• If you are interested in Mandalorians, they play a large part in the game.
• Not every class can play every race.

(from Ask a Jedi)

• Another Question about progression, they view it extremely important and there will be a lot of it. Specifically mentions crafting in that vein
• Ironically, nothing more about the multiplayer story other than mentioning there is one 🙁

The panel has apparently ended and we’ll be bringing order to this post and getting all the impressions from the attendees of the panel for you to read.

San Diego Comic Con 2010 is about to begin. Companies have been up all night setting up the booths and most devoted fans have been gathering since last night. We will be covering all The Old Republic news as they happen. Tomorrow is The Old Republic day with Bioware talking about writing the multi-player story for the Old Republic. There will also be a chance to meet Bioware devs at Dick’s Last Resort later in the day. In the meantime people setting up the booth have managed to set off the fire alarm according to their tweet. You can see some preview images we found at the official starwars.com site. If you are wondering who the redhead is – its Shae Vizsla, the bad ass Bounty Hunter from the “Deceived” trailer.

UPDATE: Meet the devs will not be held at a previously announced location. It has been moved to Fred’s Mexican Cafe in the Gaslamp district just a few blocks from the San Diego Convention Center.

Yesterday was all about music on the official The Old Republic site. We first got a brand new developer’s dispatch video covering the music we’ll be hearing in the game and right after that we got to read the very first blog by Orion Kellogg, Audio Producer at LucasArts (awesome name btw). He begins his deb blog entry by quoting George Lucas no less and than he continues to talk about the voice acting, alien tongues, following in the footsteps of John Williams in regards to music and of course the creation of all the Star Wars sounds (in his own words: “the pew-pew of a blaster rifle”). You can read the full dev blog here.

To make yesterday the most awesome Friday update ever, Sean Dahlberg also announced the release of the seventh issue of Blood of the Empire™. Teneb Kel finds himself beaten and bloodied in the aftermath of the Lenico colony’s destruction. Trapped on a strange planet, he must draw upon the ancient Sith arts in order to ensure his survival–and to learn the secrets he needs to resume his vendetta against Exal Kressh. Check out the latest issue of Blood of the Empire now!

Another Friday means another update from our friendly community manager. This week we get another Developer dispatch video (no.7) discussing the music of The Old Republic. Beside creating 5+ hours of original music for the game we will also be able to enjoy some classics from the Knights of the Old Republic game as well as some of the legendary themes from John Williams. You can visit the official page here or read an excerpt from the article bellow:

The emotional experience of Star Wars™ comes to life in new music created exclusively for The Old Republic™. From soft melodies that ring in the forest of Alderaan to the magnificent booming of a battle scene on Ord Mantell, a talented team of composers, musicians and developers came together to create a magical score for the game.

There has been a steady stream of news coming from Bioware in the past few days with the latest being the most interesting. As most of the fans already know, The Old Republic team will be attending San Diego Comic Con with their Friday, July 23rd, panel “Beyond Solo: Crafting the Multiplayer Story”. Sean Dahlberg, TOR community manager, just announced that they have something special to reveal, but in order to do so they are asking their fans to spread the word and have people “Like” their Facebook page or follow them on Twitter. The target numbers are 200,000 “Likes” on their Facebook page and 30,000 Followers on their Twitter. You can find the pages at:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/starwarstheoldrepublic
Twitter: http://twitter.com/swtor

Go, spread the word, tell your friends and subscribers to follow SWTOR. Do it for us poor fans thirsty of new information and while you are at it, you can find us on twitter at:

http://twitter.com/SwtorLife