I have a lot of convention news withdrawal. I was spoiled by the convention season and the constant stream of news coming our way. It fed the hole created by not being in the SWTOR beta. Luckily, SWTOR fansites are plentiful and have great articles and content for you to browse through on a dreaded Monday and we are here to list it all for you.
To round up the convention related news we have a bit of late news from SWTOR Station and their Gamescom coverage. They just released a new video from Gamescom that shows Daniela & Hergen (French/German Community Manager) and some speeders in action as well as Hutta’s spaceport video footage. Visit SWTOR Station for the full article and you can watch the video bellow:
Galactic Holofeed has entered its 1 year of SWTOR podcasts. Suzina and Kalvod guide us through their impressions of the Designing the Light Side Developer Dispatch and speculate in their knowledgeable and informed way about the Smuggler abilities. Clicking here will take you to their site and the Transmission 52 article.
Despite what was expected, this Friday update was not the Smuggler trailer video released earlier yesterday by Machinima.com. Instead we got a huge update containing a great “Designing the Light Side” Developer Dispatch video and a huge Fan Friday article containing a huge amount of fan created content.
The video is full of information on what decisions were made during the design process of the Jedi classes. We find out that you can choose to be a heroic type of Jedi like Luke or darker, more avenging Jedi like Anakin. There is a bunch of video footage of Tython (still one of the most serene environments I’ve seen in any game so far) along with discussion on why choosing earth tones for Jedi and “robed monk” look. Jedi Knight is all about action and adventure. Consular’s story will be more about diplomacy and you will be able to play a sneaky (stealth) role, or a more supportive (healing) role or even do some force damage (magic dps). The problem I have with each of these videos is that every time they release a new one I have to rethink what class I’m going to play as my main. I just have a need to live through all these stories and not miss out and that is going to be hard with 8 classes available. Anyone with a cloning machine wanna help me out? You can find the official video page here or just watch it below.
Along with the Developer Dispatch article we were also presented with this month’s Fan Friday. I recommend everyone visits the official news post, because it has loads of great Fan made art along with some great looking capital ship concept art presented in another Developer Corner. New wallpapers and official forum avatars are presented as well.
Guys at Machinima.com just released a Smuggler class trailer video as part of their new show called Machinima Realm. They got the privilege to release this video a day ahead of everyone else, which probably means that this video was going to be this Friday’s update. The question is: now that the Friday update has been released on a Thursday, what news will I post tomorrow? Despite my editorial troubles, you should enjoy the video. the video shows some smuggler gameplay and I think first shots of how stealth will work and what it will look like. Oh, and there’s a Wookie involved (do I smell a companion character for our Han Solo prototype?). There is a nice dissection of the video over at JediArchiveOnline.com for all you detail loving fans out there. One more thing before the video, there seems to be no “kick in the groin” action in the smuggler trailer, which kind of sucks. We all know its the best move by a video game character, like, EVAR!!!!1one11eleven!
It has been speculated for some time that Corellia is going to be one of the planets players will be able to play through and this Friday’s update confirmed those suspicions. In the first Friday update that was not posted by long time community manager Sean Dahlberg (he left Bioware a few days ago) we get a brand new Corellia Holonet page with all the basic information about the planet we could want. Things you should know about the planet:
A founding member of the Galactic Republic
Symbol of personal and economic freedom
Birthplace of Han Solo (3000 years in the future from TOR)
Main Starship production planet
Contact has been lost with the planet. Some images show destruction from bombardment but no solid info is available.
Check out the official news item here and you can see the screenshots and concept art of the new planet in our galleries below..
The biggest event for The Old Republic fans was SWTOR panel. We got loads of new media and information and AskAJedi.com was there to cover the whole event and provide us with a video showing all the great stuff revealed. Here are some of the things you can see in the videos below:
Jedi gameplay and backstory on Tython (Part 2 video)
More Republic group gameplay and dialogue footage (Part 2 video)
Empire group gameplay and dialogue (Part 3 video)
Companions seen in group action (Part 3 video)
PvP(vE)? There is some Empire group footage that ends with Empire group meeting up with Republic group after some PvE content (Part 3 video)
Live multiplayer demo with members of the SWTOR fan site community controlling the characters. Darth Hater, TOROCast and LordHammer representing Guild Umbra and TORSyndicate were the ones involved (Part 3 video)
Doors of the Penny Arcade Expo have officially opened and North American gamers can finally sink their teeth into Star Wars: The Old Republic. Covering the event are several SWTOR fansites. Darth Hater continues with their excellent coverage where they update their PAX dedicated page constantly throughout the day with new info. These are some of the more interesting things they noticed with their hands on experience:
All classes except the two Jedi ones are playable to the public at low level for approximately 15m.
The line to play is at least an hour.
Sith Warrior was a human female with cybernetics on face.
Ask a Jedi is also covering the event live with a constantly updated page. They had a chance to do a quick Q&A with Senior Producer Blaine Christine and Lead Writer Daniel Erickson. They covered advanced classes, companions, “is it an MMO?” and more. We’ll let you know as soon as they post this on their site. In the meantime you can read some highlights here. The same page also holds some hands on impressions and good screenshots. Also, they tweeted that:
Nothing new revealed today, but the inside word is that tomorrow will bring some GREAT news.
Within the next few hours Penny Arcade Expo, one of the biggest gaming conventions in the North America is about to begin. It is a very big convention for all the Star Wars: The Old Republic fans because, traditionally, it is the place where big reveals happen. Last year we got some gameplay footage and all attendees of the SWTOR panel got a copy of Knights of the Old Republic game. This year we’ll be having the first hands on event in the North America and all the PAX visitors will get what is called the SWTOR virus that can only be cured by more “gameplaytimis”. Some gamers will be lucky enough to get the elusive “betainvitis”, but for all of you out there that lack any of these rare and expensive medicine, we bring you the last of our gameplay videos we shot at this year’s GamesCom. This is the longest video we have and it features gameplay from most of the classes. You can see some cool Inquisitor action where he one shots some enemies with force lightning (at around 1:50). Present are also cutscenes and some more combat.
We’ll continue to monitor all the information pouring in from PAX and we’ll keep you updated with the most important news and footage. For now I would like to draw your attention to Jedi Archive Online, that have their man Lordhammer, from Guild Umbra, on the spot. They have the first images from PAX available here. Also covering the event are Darth Hater and ToroCast.
Today’s Friday update is not among the most informative ones. It, basically, told us about the special page on the official site that is dedicated to the space combat feature. The page contains the space combat trailer and a few screenshots, along with a description of what we can expect from this feature. There has also been an update to the screenshot and concept art sections of the site including new images for player ships. You can find the space combat page here and here’s the excerpt from the official news item:
Blast your way through asteroid fields, enemy fighters, and a variety of other obstacles as you encounter fast-paced Space Combat missions in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. In these occurrences, you’ll fly your personal starship to various “hot spots” on the galaxy map and experience gameplay that will evoke memories of some of the great Star Wars™ space battles …
… Also check out the media section to see screenshots, concept art, and wallpapers portraying these heroic battles in space.
As you might have noticed, we have been on a short hiatus caused by our recent move to a new place. Our plans to have the internet service and our computers up and operational the moment we entered the new place were thwarted by a number of unforeseen circumstances. After a long and exhausting fight with a lot of bureaucrats we emerged victorious and are continuing to supply you with fresh news from the galaxy far, far away. Here’s an image that shows what we’ve been up against during our move:
