The long awaited Jedi Consular class trailer has finally been made available. The bulky look they gave the Consular in the trailer is really just the way I would like my character to look. I was never a particularly big fan of the Consular (played healer in all other MMOS and I am sick of it, thank you very much), but the visual representation they gave in the video is just awesome. To make the update even better Bioware also released a recap video of SWTOR’s presence at San Diego Comic Con. To see all the new media for the Jedi Consular and learn more about the Shadow and the Sage advanced classes visit the Consular Class page on the official site. You can also find out more about the Consular’s trusted Trandoshan companion, Qyzen Fess. Or you can just watch the trailers bellow.
 

 

After the flood of info from San Diego Comic Con came in I decided to have some fun with it and ponder just what was my top ten info releases for me personally.  I start with number ten and work my way to the one I felt to be personally the coolest.  I wonder if your interests are similar to mine, or if you have even seen all this stuff yet?

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Darth Malgus Statue at Bioware Base

 
I wanted to give you an overview of news that have come out of this year’s San Diego Comic Con and SWTOR’s presence at the event. As all of you probably know Bioware held a panel dedicated to The Old Republic on the first day of ComicCon and there is also a Bioware Base setup in a hotel near by the convention center where many fans are able to get their hands on the game and experience other games Bioware has to offer. I would like to suggest that you closely monitor www.torwars.com and www.darthhater.com because they are the only fansites reporting live from the event and they have the most up-to-date news available. Here’s a summary of things we’ve learned so far.
 

July 21st – midnight PDT – Pre-Order launch

Official SWTOR site had a pre-order page made available with all the details on how to obtain a copy of digital standard or collector’s editions of the game or standard and CE boxed version. A number of well known MMORPG sites have had an advertising campaign for the pre-orders launched at the same time.
 

July 21st – San Diego Comic Con Bioware and LucasArts panel

• For the first time the opening crawl for one of the classes (Sith Warrior) was shown to the general public. (absolutely epic – watch in Part 1 video from TorWars here)
• No duplicate missions in class stories
• Jedi consular companion Nadia revealed for the first time (she is romancable)
• Higher level vehicles shown looking much better than segways
• There will be 19 major worlds (that means we should expect two more planets revealed?)
• You can customize companion characters, from clothing, weapons, and even their skin color, hair color and facial features
• They are testing adding tactics options to companions (like the AI system seen in Dragon Age)
• 900 voice actors have been working on the game across all languages
• There will be bonuses for people that reroll that they will talk about later (it is assumed that this is the rumored Legacy system and that you will get additional customization and race options if you have a level 50 character and roll a new character)
• Hyperspace travel between planets will take seconds (there was an idea it should take minutes, but dismissed after testing)
• It would take ~30 minutes to run across Tatooine
• Beta testing weekends start September and “huge” numbers of people will be able to join
• Stephen Reid put his Conductor’s hat on and said the following
• Release date window is now moved from second half of 2011 to Holiday 2011
• All participants of the panel got pre-order codes that will give them early access. They will still have to purchase the game tho.

General things learned from Q&A sessions and interviews

• By all accounts you will be able to respec your advanced class at some point in the game. First respec will be “easy”, but after that it will be very difficult to respec advanced class
• The boxed collector edition owners will have access to a VIP area that will hold the special CE vendor that will sell items for in-game credits. These items will have different looks than similarly powered items you can get in the game as drops or rewards.
• pre-order Color Stone should be yellow colored (yellow core with a blck glow?)
• shards (instanced versions of a certain area where two people would be standing in the same place yet be on a different “shard”) is available as a technology and they will reluctantly use it if they need to help initial launch.
• Swtor works very well on MACs with bootcamp
• Companioncan not die anymore, unlike what we heard before. “…don’t want players to lose companions and have them gone forever.

 
This compilation of information was done thanks to articles and live blogs by Newsarama and TorWars.
 

Today marks the day when Star Wars: The Old Republic pre orders have been made available on swtor.com. There are three different editions available in 22 countries for initial pre-order of the game. It has also been unveiled on Electornic Arts investors site that Dr. Ray Muzyka, Group General Manager and Co-Founder, BioWare and Senior Vice President, Electronic Arts, said that:

We are targeting Star Wars: The Old Republic to be one of the biggest launches of holiday 2011

Beside these two huge announcements there is also this:

As anticipation grows, BioWare also proudly announced today that Star Wars: The Old Republic will open “Beta Test Weekends” starting this September.

We are guessing that those that pre-order will have access to these beta weekends, but I am sure most questions will be answered today at a panel Bioware will be holding during San Diego Comic Con, which is scheduled to start today.

After years of speculation, end is in sight.

Source: http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=593263

We’ve mentioned a few days back that The Old Republic will have a strong presence at this year’s Comic Con and that there will be an off site Bioware station, in a hotel near by, where people will be able to get their hands on all sorts of games, including TOR. David Bas,, Community manager for SWTOR, also started organizing a special event for all those interested in visiting the BioWare Base at the Hilton Gaslamp. It is a special, prolonged gameplay session where you will be able to try out one of the starter flashpoints, Black Talon for the Empire classes or Esseles for the Republic. There is a limited number of seats available for these sessions on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night (July 21-23). If you want to take part in one of these you will need to RSVP for a chance to play. To participate the following needs to happen:

Photo ID will be required for entry. Please note that incomplete RSVP emails WILL NOT be considered for invites. We cannot guarantee your first choice of play time or Flashpoint.
Gather the following information:
– Full name (as shown on your ID)
– Preferred Night: Thursday, Friday, or Saturday
– Preferred Time: 7PM or 8PM
– Preferred Flashpoint: Esseles (Republic) or Black Talon (Empire)
Email all of the above info to events@swtor.com with the subject line: “RSVP for Flashpoint Gameplay at Comic-Con” by 10AM CST on Wednesday, July 13th.

Please note that anyone who wishes to play must send their own RSVP, and invites are non-transferable. Feel free to ask any questions you have below, but do NOT RSVP in this thread!

You can read more about the whole thing in the initial forum post David made and the followup instructional post.
 
The most interesting thing I find about this is that people will be able to get their hands on the Esseles flashpoint for the first time. I’d really like to hear impressions on that, so if any of you are intending to go we will more than gladly publish your impressions article on SWTOR Life.

The title of the article is actually the title of the panel that will be held at this year’s Comic Con in San Diego from 3:30 to 4:30 on July 21. The panel is hosted by BioWare and LucasArts and it is dedicated to talking about Star Wars: The Old Republic. There will be several other Star Wars panels at the show, but this one is the most important one for SWTOR fans. The title is so filled with underlying meanings that I just don’t know whether to get really excited about it or just chill so I don’t get disappointed like with some other, previously held, big conventions. You can read the full announcement at the San Diego Comic Con official site and here’s the announcement of the SWTOR panel:

Star Wars: The Old Republic : Join Us, It Is Your Destiny— BioWare and LucasArts are creating the most immersive MMO experience you’ve ever played with Star Wars: The Old Republic. Hear from BioWare developers as they discuss development of a story-driven MMO, debut new gameplay footage, and perhaps spring a few surprises along the way. Exclusive reveals, giveaways, guests, and Q&A! Room 6BCF

For good measure here’s the Facebook image of the week that was released yesterday.

Click image for full size

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.

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.