Entrance

Entrance to gaming area

Computer setup

It is a special day for all the fans of the Old Republic in the United Kingdom because they will get a chance to play the game in London tonight from 7pm GMT. The event was announced on the forums a few days ago by Stephen Reid and forum members that applied were given invites on first-come, first-serve basis (follow this link for the complete announcement). Above images show the space where the gameplay demo will be held and I must say it looks awesome and futuristic. Members of the press are also playing the game as I write this article and we expect their reactions all throughout the day. Gameplay demo includes only the Origin worlds and each person will be given a whole hour to play. We’ll be monitoring how things go and what people’s reactions are and we’ll keep you posted on any news that might come out from this event. You may also follow #SWTORGB on Twitter, because that is the “official tag” for the event. If you are attending the event we would love to hear from you and what you thought of the game. Feel free to contact us if you want to share your experience.

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.

You can read the rest of their updates here.

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.

There is a live camera you can watch on Electronic Arts GamesCom dedicated website. It is broadcasting even now although it is well past midnight in Cologne. There are actually workers still building the Crysis 2 booth. The interesting thing is that you can see what SWTOR booth will look like. This, my friends, is where first people outside of the “inner circle” will get their hands on the game. People passing by will be able to witness the awesomeness of their game playing abilities.

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention? Gamescom will be the first event in the world where TOR will be available to the general public. The news was revealed by Sean Dahlberg a few days ago, but I was so excited that I forgot to post it on the site. Duh! In any case here’s the official announcement:

Touting 245,000 attendees last year, GamesCom is known as the world’s largest gaming convention. We’re excited to be presenting The Old Republic at this year’s GamesCom in Cologne, Germany for our first worldwide consumer hands-on event! It’s going to be incredible – Don’t miss it!

Visit the Star Wars: The Old Republic booth in Hall 6.1 at Booth B066 to get another look at “Hope” on the big screen, and to see all the exciting things we’re showing off. The trailer will also be shown multiple times per day at the EA booth, so be sure to stop by!

The Old Republic Booth Schedule – Hall6.1, Booth B066

* Wednesday, August 18th, 9AM – 7PM CET (Press Only)
* Thursday, August 19th, 10AM – 8PM CET
* Friday, August 20th, 10AM – 8PM CET
* Saturday, August 21st, 9AM – 8PM CET
* Sunday, August 22nd, 9AM – 6PM CET

Electronic Arts will be occupying a huge area at hall 6 with multiple games on display. There is a whole subsection reserved for Star Wars: The Old Republic. EA’s German site has a map of booth configurations as well as the schedule of events in the EA area. What I found interesting is that when you zoom in the SWTOR area you can clearly see 3 round tables with seats for 12 and computers all around. This looks like you will be able to get some hands-on experience with the game. Whether this will be the same demo people at E3 were able to play or we will be seeing new areas of the game (space combat perhaps?) remains to be seen.

Star Wars: The Old Republic show will be held each day at these times on the central EA stage:

11:25-11:40
13:30-13:45
17:10-17:25

You can download the full schedule in PDF here.

Me neither … but people at Darth Hater certainly do. The whole staff attended E3 this year and have been able to summarize their impressions in one 5 pages long article. This is so far the most concise gathering of interesting, hands on, information available on the whole internet. They got to play for a few hours and through several levels and were able to each play a different class. This gives us the chance to read their impressions on UI, flow of combat for each of the classes (5 total), AI, graphics and art style and much more. I especially was interested in how they felt about the Dialogue System since that is the biggest venture out of the MMORPG standards we are used to. You can see them being kind of careful in their comments on the dialogue system, but overall with positive opinions. I guess it is going to be one of those love it or hate it things.
Make sure you don’t miss this article.

While I’m on the subject of community news, there is a new podcast in the swtor universe (like we don’t have enough of those 😛 ). I liked it though because we have two girl gamers discussing the game instead of your regular geeky male Star Wars fans (don’t look at me). Corellian Run podcast Episode 1 has hit the interwebz. Good luck with the podcast girls.