By popular request, we bring you another video from Gamescom 2010 hands on experience. It shows some gameplay from the trooper and smuggler as well as a cutscene of the Sith Inquisitor. There is a brief glimpse of very cool feature where the map goes transparent when you move your character. Hope you enjoy it.

Above video shows what was happening at the Star Wars The Old republic booth at this year’s GamesCom. This is the first time the general public was able to get some hands on with the game. We were able to capture some of the atmosphere there during the press only day (that is why there are not that many people). You can also see some of the people still playing, and then there is a change of gamers (every 15 minutes a new group was showed in). We will be releasing more of these in the coming days.

“The Art and Writing of The Old Republic” panel was held during Star Wars Celebration V convention on Friday and Saturday. Drew Karpyshyn (Principal Writer, BioWare), Hall Hood (Senior Writer, BioWare), Arnie Jorgensen (Lead Concept Artist, BioWare) and Clint Young (Senior Concept Artist (Environments), BioWare) discussed what goes into creating the art and story in Star Wars: The Old Republic. There is a summary article on what was talked about at the panel at starwars.com. There are not that many new things revealed, but there is a great piece of art that was made during the panel by Clint and you can see that above (click on the thumbnail to make it bigger). Darth hater also covered both events with live blogging and you can read their Friday and Saturday coverage.

One very cool thing that happened at the convention, and not related to SWTOR, is the announcement of the original trilogy coming out on Blu Ray and it will include some of the deleted scenes. One such scene was showed during he announcement and its an epic one. It shows Luke Skywalker building his lightsaber while Darth Vader tries to push him to the dark side. True fans were ecstatic (and I am too I must admit). You can see the scene below:

This Friday’s update has provided us with details on the advanced class choice you can make as a Jedi Knight. As seen in the scanned PC Gamer footage the advanced specializations are the Sentinel (dual lightsaber wielding damage dealer) and the Guardian (tank and buffer). Official’s site Holonet Jedi Knight page has been update with the new information. It has also been revealed that the associate for Jedi Knights will be the Astromech T7-01 droid. He got his own Holonet page as well in the biographies section.

The awesome trailer of the Jedi Knight class, that has been released alongside this update, shows that Jedi Knights will start on Tython. They will have some sort of force jump ability to get them up close and personal with their enemies (sort of like a warrior charge in WoW). There seems to be some sort of a buff ability for troops around the Knight (in that trooper scene). Saber deflection of laser fire is probably higher if you are a Guardian. Saber throw is another skill seen in the video as well as some sort of Chuck Norris high kick! I also must note that the graphics are looking mighty sweet and things look a lot more polished. From the look of things this is the class I personally will be going for.

Screenshots

Concept art

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.

My attention span is that of a chipmunk. If you hit me with a podcast that lasts for 2 hours I will probably be distracted by the time the opening music is done with. When you start the podcast with a small clip from Robot Chicken Star Wars episode II (that I just watched a few days ago) and your guest host is Scott from Extra Life (one of my bookmarked webcomics that I visit regularly for the past 5 years or something) you might just be able to beat my ADD. This is what Mos Eisley Radio did with their podcast #22 named “Extra Lives”.

It’s a pretty bold move to start a new podcast among so many quality ones already existing in the TOR fansite universe, but when you do it right like TOR Syndicate did we have to tell you about it. The first full fledged podcast episode is available on their site and they talk a lot about what it is like to be doing a fansite for The Old Republic. They also interview the owner of Toruniverse.com and its a great insightful show that lets you inside the fansite creating life.

In other news, we have a merger of two fansites, Dathomir Project and Jedi Archive Online that they announced in their podcast that you can find here. Also, if you are interested in joining the fansite community TOROcast.com is looking for people. You can read more about it in this thread on the official forums.

As a final treat I give you Epicness! It’s a 3D rendered Star Wars space battle made by one man as a school project and it is absolutely amazing. Found this in the forums in this thread.

Release of Star Wars The Old Republic is still some months away and at this point nobody but the people at Bioware know what it looks like or what it plays like in its entirety. Bioware has been releasing a lot of information in this past year about what the game will consist of, but what we always seem to lack are completely detailed descriptions of the announced features. I guess playing the game and seeing that feature in action is the only way to fully understand it.

There are, however, other games that Bioware released over the years and are playable. They even have some features that are announced for SWTOR. To try and understand to the full extent some of the announced aspects of SWTOR, we have decided to play Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age and Mass Effect series and try and draw conclusions on what we can expect in SW: The Old Republic. It is only reasonable to assume that Bioware will base some of the game elements in their new game on success of that feature in the old games.

Spaceships have played a great role in the Star Wars Universe. It can be argued that space scenes and scenes in spaceships are as important as those happening in more “conventional” environments. It is a Space Opera after all. Millenium Falcon, the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy according to Han Solo, is an equally important character as the Droids or the Wookies. In Knights of the Old Republic we, as players, had a chance to own our ship – the Ebon Hawk. It is our means of transportation, our storage facility, it is the place where some major plot-lines are resolved. During 2010 E3 gaming convention Bioware announced that players will also be able to own ships and released a video showcasing the ship’s interior and exterior. In difference to KOTOR, there will be different class ships available. We have created a video pitching KOTOR’s Ebon Hawk versus the ships seen in the SWTOR video.

Click here to read the full Editorial article on player ships and what we can expect

Gamespot just released their full video of the SWTOR panel that was held during San Diego Comic Con where it was officially announced for the first time that there will be Space Combat and Ship customization. This is the version with excellent quality and you can see it below or visit Gamespot’s video page to download it or view it in full HD.

P.S. Morgan Webb looks great in HD 😛

Finally we can see and hear for ourselves what it was like at the San Diego Comic Con this year. Sean Dahlberg tweeted about a thread on the official forums that holds all the links to the youtube videos. We thank Lukery for posting these links in this thread on the forums. Enjoy!

Thanks to this thread on the official forums we became aware of the video below. Apparently, the engine Bioware is using to create SWTOR is capable of producing space combat experiences. The video below is a demonstration of such capabilities by a small developer studio using the same “Hero” engine to create their own Space combat MMO. Whether Space combat in SWTOR will resemble the video below in any way is completely speculative and I must warn against making any conclusions based on the footage you are about to see. I just think this is an interesting find and wanted to share it with you.