While SWTOR is at PAX East this weekend showing off some 1.2 features, it really has not been a big event for new SWTOR information. Well, until James Ohlen was taking questions during the MMORPG.com panel discussion yesterday afternoon. The entire pannel was asked by an audience member “Why are we excited about your game?” Here’s James’ response:

“You’re going to see so many changes and additions to the Star Wars Universe. It’s going to be impressive. We have our Update 1.2 coming in the next week and then after that it’s going to continue to roll out month after month. It’s exciting.”

Does this mean  that we will for sure be seeing 1.2 coming in this next week? Hopefully, though it could just mean we will be able to download the patch next week with the official update going live some time after that. Either way SWTOR players have reason to rejoice, 1.2 is coming our way very soon!

BioWare posted a new video today showing off it’s brand new Warzone, Novare Coast.

For those that do not already know, Novare Coast will be a three-point domination style map, with a tug of war mechanic that comes in play when trying to capture objectives. It will also allow for same faction vs faction combat, giving people a much needed break from Huttball. BioWare will be showing off this warzone as the attend PAX East this weekend, a perfect opportunity for any who are lucky enough to be in attendance to give it a try.

There was also a little addition to Bioware’s post when they first uploaded, it announced that 1.2 would be released on April 10th. The was quickly edited out of the post, and BioWare has since denied that April 10th will for sure be the release date for 1.2. Still, this little slip up should give player hope that the new content will be released soon.

What do you think about the new Warzone? What do you think about the idea of getting our hands on a live version of 1.2 soon? Let us know in the comments below!

Are you one of the lucky few who will able to attend PAX East this weekend? If so you can expect to see the SWTOR Developers there talking about, and showing off, game update 1.2.

Attendees will have a chance to meet and chat with the Developers, play some of the new 1.2 content (using the Razer peripherals developed for The Old republic no less), and will even be able to grab exclusive Black and White Tauntaun Mini-Pets, which can only be obtained by coming to one of the events SWTOR will be at this year. James Ohlen will also be part of a panel put together by MMORPG.com titled: The Future of Online Gaming. this panel will be discussing where the MMO genre is going in the next 10 years, and attendees are welcome to bring questions to ask members of the panel.

Check after the jump for a full list of events this weekend, and if you are one of the lucky few who will be in attendance we hope you have a ton of fun! Continue Reading »

In a surprising mid-week update official SWTOR site released a video showcasing the highlights of the Old Republic’s presence at Penny Arcade Expo in Boston. We can see the excitement of the crowds and how awesome the booth looked. If you look closely you can see various well known faces from the SWTOR community and Corellian Run Radio is keeping a list of all that they spotted. Oh, and props to the honeymoon couple and the girl in princess Leia costume.

Something I have been wondering about for quite some time is the level of item one can expect to craft after a “crafting crit” takes place during item creation.  Will the created item be on par with raid loot drops, PVP drops, or other drops or rewards from missions?
Read on!

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With Pax now behind us, how did BioWare deliver ?

Well, they gave us exactly  what they said they would (not everything we wanted as fans). What they told us before Pax, they had the goods there. They had the early levels on the Sith classes, and what seemed to be a very respectable mid lvl instance. A great deal of interviews have come in, and I’m sure many more are on the way.

In respect to the game play, most every comment is positive, and from the footage we have seen, the instance does look like a highly engaging, and a somewhat challenging, fun packed run.

The only downside I would call out, is that of queues, that none could of foreseen. A 7 hour wait after 10 minutesof Pax opening, I’m sure you could have had four times the amount of games running, and demand would still outweigh the supply.

Continue Reading »

In their latest interview from the PAX East convention of 2011, Darth Hater sat down with Bioware’s creative director, James Ohlen.

Darth Hater: “We also heard that in your dialogue system, you are tracking metrics on when people are pausing to see how long they’re taking to make decisions and things like that to really work on the dialogue. So you are getting ton of information from the testers?”

 

James Ohlen: “We keep on getting more and more information as the testing groups get larger. We had two groups of a thousand players on a shard and that got us a lot of information because it was a lot more people playing together. We were able to see a population that was not indicative of the final game, but it was closer to it because the populations were so much bigger than just a couple hundred. We’re able to use that to make a lot of adjustments; it also validated a lot design decisions we made months earlier. The game really gets a lot better every single month. It is pretty impressive. The developer teams are getting faster at making changes and making adjustments to feedback. Two years ago it would take so long to see a change in the game, but now you see changes every month.”

From what I remember in the past, we have never really gotten a definitive number from a developer about just how many people are involved in “game testing”.  If I remember correctly the only estimations of a number came from the statement of “more than I could fit in my office” or something to that effect. (the actual quote escapes me at the moment but it was very similar to that statement)

When they tell me that they have two groups of a thousand players on a shard that gives me a better idea as to how far they are along in the numbers of people that they have allowed in at this point.  I figure it is more than two thousand at this point, but at least I now have a baseline reference.

The comment that they were “on a shard”  also makes me wonder if they also have the ability of running more than one shard at this time with their current server structure.  I am thinking they do and that they may be currently operating several shards at this point in time.  Maybe a private in house version for the developers only that showcases the latest builds, maybe a couple for outside the office testers, and etc.   I may be way off base,  as this is just speculation on my part.

In the end though, with this developer interaction I feel better about the testing process going on at Bioware.  One of my fears from the past was that they didn’t have the amount of people testing their game that they needed to find out all that was necessary.  That a small minority of people testing would sway the design decisions in directions I as a MMO veteran did not approve of for my gaming time.

With a number of at the very least two thousand testing the game, I feel much better that a wider view of MMO mechanic and game play design is being addressed.

Now if I could just get my hands on it and test out the “Crew skills system” I could die a happy man.      🙂

Welcome to our second day of covering the Penny Arcade Expo and all the Star Wars The Old Republic news that will be pouring out of Boston. Yesterday was a satisfying day for TOR fans because of the officially released trailer and a number of great gameplay videos from both Taral V instance/flashpoint and starting worlds. There was an announcement that we’ll get some more official news today as well so keep refreshing this post for the latest updates.

Latest Video:

Latest News:

• Paraphrasing: Crafting is complex and intricate and involves a lot of social interaction – Daniel Erickson (source: Jen’jidai Guild)
• “There is our own version of the slave leia costume” – James Ohlen (source: Jen’jidai Guild)
• There will be no day/night cycle in the game at release. Some planets have multiple moons/suns – too hard to implement (source: Darth Hater)
• 16 minute Official in-game Taral V Developer Walkthrough video released
• Line at SWTOR booth at PAX is so long that David Bass (senior community manager) just told the tail of the line that they won’t be able to play today!!! It’s 10:15am (tweeted by Jen’jidai Guild)

Images from the show floor:

Click for Full Size

CRR Crew + Erickson = awesome

Torocast, DartHater, MER

You can check out our Day One coverage in the posts bellow:

• SWTOR PAX East 2011 Minute by Minute Coverage Day 1
• 15 minutes of gameplay footage in HD!
• PAX East Gameplay Videos Galore – Day 1

Visitors of Penny Arcade Expo have been busy recording various gameplay sessions all throughout day 1 of the convention and we have gathered all the relevant videos in this one post. There is some more footage of Taral V flashpoint as well as some starting planets gameplay. We also have Daniel Erickson giving a few more presentation of various planets and I suspect we will be seeing all of these videos as downloadable content from the official site. Until then enjoy.

Taral V Jedi Knight group gameplay

Video shows full in-game cinematic for the instance telling us the background story of why are we fighting this hard fight. Flashpoint footage is from the first third of the instance and the person playing is a clicker (you have been warned). Quality is Full HD and the video is worth your bandwidth.

Taral V Jedi Knight group gameplay – Last Boss

Video shows the last third of Taral V instance including the fight (and wipe) with the last boss. *spoiler alert* Last boss seems to have an add so it requires some coordination and unfortunately the Trooper died and Jedi Knight was not able to take aggro from the healers quickly enough (not his fault). The person playing seems to be a veteran MMO player and you can see just how smooth the gameplay is when played by a knowledgeable player. The video is HD and gets 5 stars from me.

Taral V Jedi Sage group gameplay

Jungle part of Taral V from the Jedi Sage perspective. Video is HD with detailed shot of the UI in the end

Bounty Hunter Hutta gameplay

We see the starting zone for Bounty Hunter with some great cutscenes and a chubby BH as our protagonist. HD quality is available and I recommend watching it this way because it brings out the best out of the game footage.

Hoth – presented by Daniel Erickson

We see some areas of Hoth with surprising volcanic activity and future questing grounds set inside ice caves and ship graveyards. Available in HD quality as well. Thanks to Engrey for the footage.

Tatooine – presented by Daniel Erickson

Official trailer showing in-game footage of Tatooine vistas.

Sith Warrior – 14 minutes on Korriban

The video shows all cutscenes and footage from questing inside a cave on Korriban. This is footage similar to the one we’ve see at Gamescom last year, but nice to see it again.

Darth Hater just released a video they shot at the SWTOR booth at Pax East where a demonstration of the Space Combat feature was held live. Presentation was hosted by Daniel Erickson and Stephen Reid and the footage is amazing in all of its Full HD glory. The video shows awesome footage of the space map and then shows us space combat inside an asteroid field. Darth Hater is working on one of their famous dissections of the video and you can find it here.