This Friday update is Fan Friday and, for us, it is the most exciting update thus far. It is because SWTOR Life is featured in Fan Site Spotlight section and we got to answer a few questions in it. Feel free to check it out in the official news article.
During the first Fan Site Summit Bioware organized for members of the Fan Sites that write about their upcoming MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, we had a chance to sit down for 2 days and play the game. These are impressions from our hands on experience and they are divided into the following segments:
Within the first 15 minutes of playing Star Wars: The Old Republic, even in its beta state, you know this is a game made by the same people that made KOTOR, Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Everything in it screams: “Hi, my name is James Ohlen, I am the lead designer of this game and yes, I made Knights of the Old Republic as well”. There is that familiar feeling you get when you start talking to NPCs and start doing quests that makes you think that this is the game sequel you’ve been waiting for.
During our last month’s visit to Bioware’s studio in Austin, Texas there was one moment I personally enjoyed almost more than playing the game. It was the Q&A session with the writing team of the Old Republic. Seeing all those people creating the awesome stories we’ll be experiencing in the game and hearing them talk about it openly and with clearly visible enthusiasm was just a perfect moment in time. I mean, I am a fan, there is no doubt of that, but, to see these people be just as enthusiastic about the game they are helping create was priceless. With hopes you will get to experience at least a small portion of what was felt in that room we bring you a video of the Q&A session with the writers and all of them talking about the favorite thing they’ve written for the game.
On day 2 of the Fan Site Summit in Austin a PvP presentation was scheduled. Unfortunately, Derek and me had to leave early to catch our flights back home so we missed most of the action. We did attend the Q&A with Gabe Amatangelo, but never got to actually participate in PvP. I’ll lay out the most important stuff we heard at the Q&A and link to coverage from other sites that were present and got to fight it out.
You will be able to cast Crowd Control abilities on an enemy character only a set amount of times before they become immune to CC. There is a thing called resolve bar, that will be visible below each character’s HP bar, that fills up each time a CC ability lands on that character. When the resolve bar is full – character is immune.
Score in PvP battlegrounds is divided among several categories: Healing done, Damage done and Defending done. Defending is related to the ammount of damage tank characters absorb on behalf of their allies this is done through the “Guard” ability every tank character has
Guard ability lets you select an ally and cast this ability on him. This will “link” their health to the tank’s and 50% of all damage the “guarded” character receives is damaging the tank instead.
There will be special PvP zones that once you enter you are automatically flagged for PvP. Even on PvE serves!
As reward from PvP You get Valor points which are an alternative leveling system that lets you purchase PvP rewards once you reach certain Valor level. These rewards will not be too powerful when compared to PvE gear of similar class; 10-20% at most. This is more of a way of providing players with means to distinguish themselves as PvP players to the general population.
Once the battleground is over you can actually vote for (commend) one player you think contributed the most. Person that was elected the most useful will get more rewards.
Players that go on special streaks (like kill 10 enemies in a row without dying) get “badges” and their achievement is announced to everyone in the battleground so you know who is doing well/to avoid.
Another battleground was revealed and it is called the Voidstar. The objective of this battleground is for one team to attack the enemy’s base objective by objective until they captured them all. At the end teams switch sides and the match continues.
During the first Fan Site Summit Bioware organized for members of the Fan Sites that write about their upcoming MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, we had a chance to sit down for 2 days and play the game. These are impressions from our hands on experience and they are divided into the following segments:
DISCLAIMER: Everything discussed here is subject to change. The version of the game we played was not even the latest build that was about to hit the beta servers around the time we visited Austin. Please, take all of the things said here with a grain of salt. Through testing and player feedback things drastically change.
I will be covering exploration in The Old Republic in this part of my Imperial Agent hands on series of articles. Why exploration? It has become a lost art of MMO design. As developers moved towards creating more accessible games in order to reach the widest audience possible they chose to hold the players’ hand every step of the way and take them down a predefined path. This made exploration a moot point since there was nothing outside that laid out path. Massive Multiplayer games are, however, a perfect setting for exploration. With its massive lands that take hours to walk across you should be able to find things that none else saw before. Little gems of lore and land that game designers left for those inquisitive types of players. Does Bioware provide something like that in The Old Republic? Click here to read more about my exploring adventures with the Imperial Agent
During the first Fan Site Summit Bioware organized for members of the Fan Sites that write about their upcoming MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, we had a chance to sit down for 2 days and play the game. These are impressions from our hands on experience and they are divided into the following segments:
In this article I will talk about the famous Story component BioWare has been focusing on as a main pillar of this MMORPG. If you know Bioware you know their strongest asset is great story. That is why I wanted to fight “The Man” and try and break that aspect of the game. I am an ex World of Warcraft player. Your story does not concern me. Give me quests and point me to where I can shoot stuff. There will be some spoilers in this article, but I will try and spare you as much as I can and warn you upfront when spoiler is incoming.
During the first Fan Site Summit Bioware organized for members of the Fan Sites that write about their upcoming MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, we had a chance to sit down for 2 days and play the game. These are impressions from our hands on experience and they are divided into the following segments:
In this article I will talk about the way combat works in SWTOR. I want to talk in detail about the skills my character had at its disposal during my gameplay and what it felt like to fight different types of enemies. I managed to get to level 6 on my own and I played a flashpoint with a level 9 character.
I’ve set a goal on playing the game outside of my usual gaming patterns. I usually read the quest text and do every quest I can find and I really hate to grind. I spend hours exploring and finding groups to do some cool stuff. In this case, I approached the game a bit different. I wanted to skip as much dialogue as I could to see if the game is still fun when I “break” the story element and I went off hunting mobs at random and outside my level range to see what it felt like. With all that in mind I sat at my designated computer and faced my scrawny imperial agent character. I felt sorry for the poor guy, he was in for some pain.
It is hard to pick out any particular coverage of the Fan Site Summit, because 15 fan sites were present and we think all of them did a great job. We are biased towards one of them because writer for SWTOR Life, MrWarlock, also represented his own site – SWTOR UK at the Summit. We had chance to hang out with Mick for those few days at the summit and I can tell you he is one proper human being. Now that I met him I truly regret not living closer so we can hang out more often in person. What you also need to know about him is that he is exclusively an MMO gamer and he’s been playing MMOs since Ultima Online. Story and some such tomfoolery is of no concern to him, or is it? To find out I recommend you read his articles from the Fan site summit – they are a jewel.
I would also like to point out that he is running a giveaway of swag he got at the summit. You can read all about it in his SWTOUR swag article and get a chance to win the book Deceived as well as a Sith t-shirt and hat.
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As part of our Fan Site Summit experience at Bioware offices in Austin, Texas, we got a chance to participate in two Q&A sessions that were organized with Damion Schubert, Lead Systems Designer, Daniel Erickson, Lead writer and Blaine Christine, Live Producer for Star Wars: The Old Republic. We managed to ask one question to each of them and I am providing you with a transcripts of these questions and answers along with complete audio recording of the Q&A sessions so you can hear what other sites asked and got answers for.
I would also like to mention that the impression you get when asking these developers questions is that they are really smart and approachable. I thought that the Imperial Agent question (that we actually got asked by one of the community members on the official forums) was going to catch them off-guard, but they had an answer right off the bat. They want to tell you everything about the game that they have been building for so long and it always take an effort for them to constrain themselves to not spilling the beans on not-yet-released information.
I was recently given the opportunity to play the Bounty Hunter class in an origin world experience at the first ever Bioware Fan Site Summit. It was a fun time indeed and I am thankful for the opportunity. It has answered a lot of questions for me personally about more than just the class, but on a broader level of having to do with my views on the game.
