IGN.com gave us one of our first looks at what players can expect out of game update 1.3, also known as the “Allies” update. The major features of this update are a group finder, augment tables, new legacy perks, and the big daddy of the update; server transfers. Details about the update come in the form of a video by James Ohlen, as well as a nice interview with Daniel Erickson.

In addition to the video you can find the full interview with Daniel Erickson here.

What are you most excited for in 1.3? Let us know in the comments below!

Tonight via the @SWTOR account on twitter I was made aware that Bioware is advertising a sneak peek at the Friday update, a Developer Dispatch having to do with companions.

It is a great one in my opinion, over seven minutes of some of the developers talking about companions and the mechanics revolving around them.  Such people as James Ohlen, Daniel Erickson, Georg Zhoeller, and more make this one of my favorite dev dispatches to date.

It is an interview done by Gamespot, very well done and full of information indeed.  It talks about customization options, companions with levels and the ability to level them, and many more goodies.  If you haven’t seen it yet I highly recommend going to see it or you could just wait till tomorrow……..

I thought not, well, here it is.  😉

We all know Bioware has some of the smartest and funniest people in the industry. They were smart to put some of them up in front of cameras, because only that way we get things like this:

Just to prove that this is not shopped here’s a link to the video interview during which DE wears this hat.

To prove our point further here are some more images from this year’s E3 featuring Daniel Erickson in additional interesting situations.

Torwars.com has created the most awesome picture gallery in the history of humorous E3 posts ever. Make sure you check out their Bioware Booth Babes of E3 2011, guest starring Daniel Erickson:

 
Next up is something that was actually “shopped”. It is an image from last night’s meet & greet that Darth Hater posted. Commentary was added by a person called @C_Kaes

Best for last. Two Tor Gamers (And Some Microphones) is a podcast by members of the Beskar guild with a female and a male host. Blueneko , the female host, has been saying for a few weeks now how she’s gonna go to E3 and rub Daniel Erickson’s head. So, she went to E3 and rubbed DE’s head. Pictures as proof:

UPDATE: This one was sent in by Yufmelt.com (You have failed me for the last time SWTOR blog). Make sure you check out their impressions from the Meet & Greet last night.

I would like to thank Mr. Daniel Erickson for his time and giving us this great interview. We were honored to bring the community questions to him and are happy that we were able to get most of them answered. You can check out this thread on the official forums to see what were all the questions that were asked and which ones did get answers.
 

 
Click here to read the full transcript of this interview

We had a pleasure of sitting down with Daniel Erickson, lead writer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, and he was nice enough to answer us some burning questions that the SWTOR community suggested us to ask. Here’s a recap of the most important information and you can view the video bellow.

• It is highly unlikely that there will be a pre-release character creator like the one that was present in Dragon Age and Mass Effect.
• There will be different size raids for different difficulties. It is not yet fully defined what those sizes will be for the bigger raid, but smaller raid will be 8 man
• No dynamic content in the same sense as in Rift
• Number of characters per server not defined yet. Guess is that you can have enough to play each class per server, but not yet sure.
• Kicking people off a cliff in PvP matches – YES
• Changing character look after you create it (barber shop) – probably not at ship
• You can have 5 companions on your main character and 5 companions on all your alts and they will all be able to craft at the same time (offline queue) (please watch the interview for better explanation)
• Crafted equipment is what you will need to go into a raid to get the best equipment ever on the server (please watch the interview for better explanation)
• Vanity pets (sly smile – no comment – watch the interview – you will know)

Here’s the Audio version of the interview. The video file is taking forever to upload and we will have full video version as soon as we can get that edited. Thank you for your patience.

Breaking News

• Raid info at Gametrailers.com; Belsavis has various enviroments (Snow, Jungle, Lava); Ancient prison from ancient race is on the planet; Belsavis trailer being shown.; Imperial vs Republic conflict compromised the prison; Guy that got released ruled 20.000 years ago over 10,000 planets; You have to defeat him.
• 4 minutes of gameplay footage from the show floor. This is the full length version of our previous video
  
  

Latest News

• Up next on Gametrailers Live Stream TV is SWTOR. Watch the stream here.
• Razer, maker of gaming peripherals, has created SWTOR themed gaming gear. They have a trailer and images of it on their site and there is also a contest going on. We will have more on this once we talk to Razer ourselves.
• There was a Live Show on Gamepost before Daniel Erickson did his Live Stream for the fans. Here’s a link to the Youtube recording of the Gamespot Live Show (Gameplay and comments included)
• Ask A Jedi has posted their gameplay video footage here
• Massively has an article up about their hands on experience.

Recap of live stream with Daniel Erickson

• Tatooine is absolutely huge. Even with a mount it took a while to get from one place to another
• Blizz is a Jawa companion that only Bounty Hunters receive. He is a DPS gadgeteer.
• Companions have their own equipment screen, but not all of them change their look (like the Jawa companion). Those that don’t change look with gear have special “different look kits” that we’ll here more about soon
• Player mounts (vehicles) have different designs, speeds and cost
• There are Sarlaac in the game and you can chuck people into them. Whether they were thinking PvP or PvE is unclear.
• Droid companions get their own unique type of armor plating, as in the KOTOR series
• There is one more warzone that has not be announced and that people will be excited about because it is “special”.
• Tatooine is visitable by all classes, Dune Sea will be a huge PvP server hotspot
• When you die, there is a Medical Probe option that revives you exactly where you died. Upon revival you have 12 secs of Ultra-Stealth that no one can see.
• You can not level purely through PvP

Due to the previous post getting humongous I have decided to create the Part 2 of our live blog. Hope you stay with us because we still gave about 4 hours of coverage left.

News is already starting to come in from E3 although it hasn’t even started yet! Unfortunately, a lot of sites are reporting wrong information so stuff like 4-man raids and experience with the Operation: Eternity Vault are all wrong. This puts a taint on what information is actually correct and what is a product of reporter confusion. My best guess is that some members of the press were invited to play Talar V flashpoint and got to play the Origin worlds (as is said in the machinima.com interview with Daniel Erickson). Everything else you might read is reporters getting confused in between what they played and what they heard will be talked about on the show floor.
 
The following interview Machinima did with Daniel Erickson is a nice intro into what is happening. Nothing new is revealed but it is always nice hearing DE talk (yes, I’m a fanboi).

The next piece of information I am not sure about. Kotaku released an article about the first impression of the game and mentions the Raid content. There have been some questions raised about the validity of information in this article, but some of it seems valid.
 
I hope we’ll sort all of this confusion out by this time tomorrow when people that know what they are doing will be reporting from the show floor.
 
On that note I leave you with an image of our very own SWTORCrafter’s E3 Media badge that he just got at the LA Convention Center.

Going to a convention for a game you are following is always a magical time, especially if it is Star Wars The Old Republic MMO by Bioware! Join me, SwtorCrafter,  as I get ready to go to E3 in Los Angeles on the 6th!

Bring the awesome Bioware, I double dog dare you!  😛

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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.

Click here to read and listen to the questions and answers we got

As it is finally the 18th in my time zone, I can now officially announce that representation from   www.swtor-life.com will be going to Bioware headquarters in Austin, Texas to take part in an on site, fan site event held by Bioware. The event will start on the 24^th and last through the 26^th of April and Bioware has graciously offered to bring us there for this grand time.

Me, Derek “Swtorcrafter” Green and my partner in this grand adventure,  Serge “Swtorlife” Stanarevic will do our very best, to bring you, the fans of the Old Republic, the best coverage and information we can. Our goal is to bring you all as close to the action as we are allowed to. We have interviews planned, live picture blogs of our journey through this adventure via Twitter, and of course you can count on our witty and informative articles to satiate your appetite for Star Wars The Old Republic information!

Although we are probably going to have to hide from Daniel Erickson cause we know he wants to kick our butts for our portrayal of him in gungan attire,

and we might just have to hide from Blaine Christine as well so he doesn’t try to drag us into a LARP game!

Be sure to stay tuned to this site and also through Twitter for all the action from the fan sites and the Developers using the hashtag #SWTOUR (great name!  -credit to @rockjaw -aka- Stephen Reid, Senior Community Manager for Bioware)

You can follow the Swtor-Life team through Twitter at the following accounts, @SwtorLife, @SWTORCRAFTER, @MrWarlock_, @Grant__D, @ForceMeridian and @BorukBH

We hope that you will follow us and join us in this grand adventure!

I would like to make a personal thank you to Bioware for this opportunity!  They have done much more for me and my partner Serge than provide a way for us to enjoy what is to be one of the most awesome events in SWTOR pre-release history, they have given friends the opportunity to meet in real life.

Some of you that know us here, may know that I am located in the Central United States and Serge is located In Serbia.  While we are fully committed to making this fan site one of the best in the community for SWTOR, we never actually thought we would get the chance to meet in real life because of obvious distance issues.  Bioware, thank you, you have made our dream of one day meeting a reality, we will never forget this!

WOOT LET’s GET READY TO PARTY!

BIOWARE,

WE R IN UR BASE!

(almost 😛 )