There is a special day dedicated to press members only and this is one of the best things I remember about GamesCom. The crowds are much more manageable and if you scheduled ahead you can get most of your work done that first day; fill in the gaps during the other days. This day also is filled with new information and this year is no different.
 
First we have the video of the presentation held yesterday during the EA Press Conference reorded and posted on youtube by instarwars.de Grman SWTOR fansite:
 

 
Next is video of SWTOR booth brought to you by SWTOR EU fansite:
 

 
The juiciest piece that came out of GamesCom so far is this video by Darth Hater crew showing The Pit. It is a PvP arena with Capture the Flag rules, only you control a ball and not a flag and you can pass it around. It is a kind of deadly football with lightsabers and blasters and in game it is called Huttball.
 

 
We would also like to congratulate Bioware for Winning the Best Online Game of the show at GamesCom this year. It is very well deserved.

Most of us have been in the place when the mmo we are playing just ain’t fun anymore.

Most of the friends you have made are all still playing, but not as much as they once used to. You’ve also been thinking of leaving for such long now but you are invested in the game. All you seem to think about is the amount of time you have dedicated to playing and you hope things will get better, something beyond the next patch that will bring back the glory days of old.

I know I’ve been in this place a few times first being with Ultima Online followed by SWG. But never again will I be duped into thinking that I can’t leave for some obscure reason.

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Electronic Arts Press Conference, that is traditionally held a day prior to GamesCom’s start, is one of those huge media events that always brings fresh news. There is a live stream available of this event, but as with all the other events so far we will be covering the happening live here on SWTOR Life. We will be updating this post with news as they become available so stay tuned and refresh those browsers. There will be other EA games showcased at the event but SWTOR will have a prominent spot. The conference is only 20 minutes away so stay tuned.

• Dr. Ray Muzyka will be holding a live presentation of SWTOR during the EA press conference
• 

  image of rehersal

• The conference is about to begin
• We will see 10 games that we will play this year *wink wink – nudge nudge*
• We are seeing Fifa Street and Need For Speed titles and their presentations
• Dr. Ray is here talking about Dragon Age: Legends and Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes, a new PvP Play4Free game for the PC.
• gearing up for smooth launch. Record breaking pre-orders of SWTOR. Quest sequence in German being shown now.

Open testing beta weekends upcoming

• Talking about end-game Operations (raids) – showing live demo of Eternity Vault
• 8-16 players in raids
• Eternity vault is an ancient prison and we are seeing turrets attacking the team and Agent healing the Juggernaut tank
• I am seeing Rockjaw among the people playing the raid.
• We are seeing a lot of AoE skills from different classes
• Turrets are destroyed and after cutscene a huge annihilation droid boss lands and we are seeing a nice boss fight.
• New Eternity Vault footage trailer being shown
• That is it for SWTOR. Talking about MAss Effect 3 now. I ust say that footage looked good. The only real reveal is 8-16 people in raids. Whether this will be normal raid size is 8 and heroic raid version is 16 – remains to be seen

That is it for our live coverage of EA’s press conference. Stay tuned for more news from GamesCom as we cover all the incoming information.

One of, if not the biggest, gaming shows in the world is about to take place in Cologne, Germany, from August 17th-21st. With the release date closing in fast, Star Wars: The Old Republic will have a very strong presence at the show this year. First images that are coming in show that the hands on area this year is much larger (three times as large) than last year. There is a kind of excitement in the air as well because the Beta September is just around the corner and everyone is awaiting more news on this as well. For European SWTOR fans this will also be the first chance to meet the new European community managers. We also know from recent news that footage from the Eternity Vault, end game operation (raid), will be shown for the first time as well.

We’ll be watching closely for all the news pouring in from the show floor so you’ll have one place to go to for all SWTOR news from GamesCom. Here’s a preliminary schedule of things to watch out for and a few images we dug up.

• The unofficial offical Twitter hashtag for This year’s news from Gamescom and PAX Prime is #ComPAXTOR
• There will be some footage about SWTOR on BiowareTV. We’ll update you with details once we find out more.
• Tuesday, August 16th. – EA press conference – streaming live starting 4PM CET.
• Thursday, August 18th – 12:45 To 13:00 CET – SWTOR: Producer Presentation
• Friday, August 19th – 12:45 To 13:00 CET – SWTOR: Producer Presentation
• Saturday, August 20th – 12:45 To 13:00 CET – SWTOR: Show
• Sunday, August 21st – 12:45 To 13:00 CET – SWTOR: Show

EA Press Conference preaprations	SWTOR Booth
Chris Collins - EU Community manager	Release date tease

Here’s a livestream of all EA booths at Gamescom, including SWTOR.

Watch live streaming video from ea at livestream.com

Lets Meet and Greet!

If you are lucky enough to be present in the area at GamesCom this year in Europe you will have the opportunity to meet the Bioware developers at a “meet and greet” that they will be putting on.

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Hopefully your guild has one of these to guide you into SWTOR Beta!

In the latest podcast from TorSyndicate, David Bass and Stephen Reid talk about the possibility that we might soon see testing invites going out for guilds leading up to the September beta weekends plan.  When does this mean that they will go out?  While we are not sure of the actual date it does appear that it will be very soon.

Here is what David Bass had to say on the subject:

(1:12:00 into the podcast)    In addition to phase 2, we’re also going to be starting up a guild testing program. We’re obviously continuing to expand out invites for testing and we’re going to start including guilds in that list. So if anyone is interested, I don’t know if that is something people would be involved in or not. It’s more about trying to get an entire group of people who enjoy playing together into the game together. As we’ve said before, guild testing invites are random and so you get some people grouping up and playing together but it’s nice to have an entire guild there playing together so they can plan out…they can be more coordinated in-game which really helps us see how that is going to happen at launch when you have all of those guilds in the game, playing the game.

So hopefully you are already part of and in a established guild for SWTOR.  If so you might just be getting guild testing invites soon!

Watch those email boxes and pester your guild leaders cause it’s coming.

🙂

 

UPDATE:  Shortly after making this post “Doctordake” AKA David Bass had this to say on twitter,

doctordakeDavid Bass

We are very pleased to announce the start of Guild Testing for STAR WARS: The Old Republic! This program will allow guilds to be considered as a whole for inclusion in the Game Testing Program, allowing us to gather important data regarding how guilds play The Old Republic, as well as how organized groups deal with various mechanics and systems in the game. The program is already underway, as we’ve invited the first wave of guilds into testing, however we’ll be adding more over the coming weeks alongside the general Game Testing invites.

How do I sign my guild up for Guild Testing?

All you need to do in order to have your guild considered for Guild Testing is to have an active guild with at least 10 members registered in our Guild Headquarters. We also recommend creating a recruitment thread on our forums, but please make sure you are following the Recruitment Guidelines we’ve set forward. Guilds that spam recruitment messages after multiple warnings, for example, will not be considered for Guild Testing.

How are guilds selected for Guild Testing?

In general, guild testing is done randomly from all eligible guilds (that is, those with at least 10 registered members in the Guild Headquarters). Throughout the program, we will be looking to let in both large and small guilds, so as long as your guild meets the minimum requirement, you have an equal chance of being invited to testing. In addition, we may, at our discretion, choose a few select guilds that are active and helpful in the community, since we could use that sort of helpfulness in-game and on the Testing Forums. Note that this will be done in rare circumstances, in order to reward our dedicated community members. Please do not contact any BioWare staff requesting access to Guild Testing, or else your guild may be removed from consideration.

How do I know if my guild has been selected for Guild Testing?

Guild leaders will be contacted directly with detailed instructions when their guild gets selected for testing. It’ll be their job to pass the appropriate information to the rest of their guild in order for everyone to be sent testing invites.

What is involved in Guild Testing?

Guild Testing works the same way as Game Testing does, however by being invited as a guild, you gain the advantage of being in the same testing group and being on the same server, allowing for more coordination amongst the guild for testing group content. You’ll still be a part of the general Game Testing population as well, and will have access to the general testing forums as everyone else does.

Are European guilds eligible for Guild Testing?

European Guild Testing will begin at the same time the European Testing Program begins in the near future.

If you have any other questions about the program, feel free to post in this thread or email us at guilds@swtor.com. Again, please do not contact us asking for Guild Testing consideration or your guild may not be considered for testing.

 

 

 

 

 
Inspired by SWTOR fans on Twitter I’ve started playing League of Legends, DOTA clone or what people now call a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game. It is a competitive PvP game where you completely rely on your teammates to win a match and it is a gathering of the worst type of gamers in the world – caps lock, nerd rage, griefing, intoxicated, noob calling type that plays these kind of games since Warcraft III. Why would I subject myself to something like that you might ask. The magic that makes me sit down every day and play a few games is the existence of levels in this game. Whenever you play a match, whether you win or lose, you get a small amount of XP which goes towards leveling your “account”. Higher the level, more things get unlocked for your characters to use. The carrot at the end of the stick is level 30 and who knows what wondrous things await me once I reach that fabled place called end game. Ranked matches? My personal army of hot babes? Cookies?
 
Whatever awaits at the end of the rainbow we are compelled to fill that XP bar. This is so noticeable that almost every game company out there is now making their games in such a way that unlocking something through some form of leveling is present in their games. We have shooters with levels and better guns, we have logic games setup that way. Facebook casual games are mini MMOs these days. Even Gandalf the Grey leveled up to Gandalf the White once he killed that Balrog in Moria. I predict with the next incarnation of Windows we’ll probably see a new version of Solitaire with leveling and RPG elements.
  Click here to read more thoughts on the leveling game and how SWTOR will handle it

Star Wars is in your town, invading your cons

 

Gamescom and PAX Prime. Two of the biggest gaming conventions in the world that happen back to back and mark “the end” of big convention season. Two locations where Bioware traditionally releases the biggest announcements, or at least the most footage and information. It is also two weeks (and some change) before September when the Pre-Order Beta Testing should start as well. Could this be the greatest two weeks for all us dedicated SWTOR Fans? It sure looks promising.
 
In today’s Friday update we found out that at GamesCom we’ll see small presentations of Eternity Vault, the only raid in SWTOR at launch (as far as we know for now). There will be hands-on stations of origin worlds, similar to the ones setup last year (this was done for the first time at Cologne last year). There will also be an invitation only Alderaan PvP experience like the one we’ve seen at ComicCon. It also seems that BiowareTV will be live streaming from the show extensively, so even us not being there will be able to get a glimpse of the happenings. This will surely not be the only news from the show floor, but we’ll have to wait and see.
  Click here to read our predictions about Pax Prime

Crafting. Yes crafting. The all elusive, god forbid, sucks to level, identical item, farm your ass off, kill a ni-hao slinging bot for a node, shoot your best friend in the face for a plot on dantooine… crafting.  I will admit it. I was a crafter.  Yes. the man you look at today, whom rated a whopping 4 in the wow arena system, the lord of murder, Flagg, the god of pvp carnage and utter destruction was a crafter.  All jokes aside, In SWG. I loved that shit.  LOVED it.  Lived for it. Hell, I’ll admit it. I sold gold (credits) to websites, that resold my gold.  I sold so much of it, i lived on it for 2 years….. no joke.  2200.00 a month. It was heaven.  Then it all changed… wait…what the fuck am i babbling on about now…. Oh the glory days. Back to it then… Crafting.

 

I really want to get back to it. I want an inquisitor for leveling (my full video on ustream thingy) but for gods sake, I want to grind and level a jedi knight crafter.  A “Force Architect”(@flagg20011-2099). if you will. The crystal making , lightsaber wielding mofo.   The man with the plan.  Or whatever.

 

The thing is, after reading a few 1/2 assed reviews on the crafting, then reading one post beta guy.. Shit, I cant wait.  He ranted and raved about it, being a crafter from swg himself. Good god that’s tough optimism  to try to break. He went on about how engaging it was, how wonderful it was to craft sex droids, how exciting it was to kill jawas and use their soul to fuel his deadly machine based one demons from….oh wait, wrong game.  The point is he loved it. And I’ll be honest here. I know a lot of people who talk out of school and said the same. The crafting system is fun as hell, unique, and phenomenal.

 

You know how hard it is to find a game with good engaging crafting? How utterly mindbogglingly hard?  Impossible is the proper term. It’s so bad it almost seems as if these days most companies throw it in as some sore-ass abused after-though of some overworked department full of burnouts.  Not so here, I hope.  How do you guys feel?  This week is my monthly questionnaire, first (and most likely only month) to do this before Derek and Serge shut me down like cancer in a radiation lab.

 

Q:  Are you excited about crafting?  If so, give 3 reasons.  If not, Post a link to a picture of a cool jawa.

Q: Have you ever thought about drawing or animating a sexy alien chick. Even after a drug fueled binge of “heavy metal” and peyote? if not, please tell us your favorite color, and a 300 word essay on what makes that color whup monkey-ass.

Q: Is time travel possible.  Seriously. I want to know.

Q:Do you play “World of Tanks” and when you kill a tank do you yell ” You underestimate the power of the dark side!”  IF not, explain why you like 90210 in less than 7 words.

Q: Ever get in an argument over your Halloween costume…after you turned 20?

Q: Is the only reason you like Harrison Ford at all:  A: HAN SOLO  /  B: INDIANA JONES   ?

Q: Is there a way to travel faster than light? Think, tachyon…

Q: Do you love swtor?

 

I eagerly await your ramblings!

/Flagg/

P.S. Notice the sarcasm and fucking lack of fucking cussing i did in the fucking article.  Wo-fucking-rd to your mothers uncle.

 

/Flagg/

 

Love you all. Seriously….

/Flagg.

Here comes the money!

 
Today we get word from Doug Creutz, analyst with Cowan FInancial Group  and a article from Forbes website  that they project that SWTOR might hit 3 million copies sold within the first year.  With a quote from his statement we hear that…..

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