((The RP XP with MJ #10))

     The smoke and dust settled slowly over the street. Fires crackled and hissed, injured people moaned or cried out from the rubble. The Miraluka moved slowly through the debris left by the Imperial attack, looking for signs of the two Jedi. Anywhere she found a civilian or a passerby who was hurt in the attack, she took the time to escort them out of the street and into the safety of an alley where two surviving Republic troopers had set up a triage.

     After finding five survivors and marking two bodies, Misha Vu-don crouched next to a Force aura. Of course she couldn’t see the bruised and soot-stained face of Master Kendris, but she could clearly see the Force emanating from him.

     Kendris blinked up at the woman, then his eyes widened with panic. “What happened? Where’s Tarik?”

     The Miraluka spoke in a voice so calm it was almost lost in the hush of settling ash. “He is well, Kendris. I believe he managed to escape before the bombardment. He seeks your Twi’lek. I am Misha Vu-don of he Nazzri Enclave.”

     Kendris pried himself out of the rubble and dusted himself off after making a cursory check of himself for wounds. A few bruises, a few cuts, but miraculously all right.

     “The Sith are gone,” Misha said, not quite looking at him but sensing his curiosity.

     “Where did that go? Which way?”

     She held up a hand and rested it on his chest. She felt the firmness of his armor below the robes and smiled. “Calm yourself, Kendris. There are other more important questions to answer first.”

     The Jedi Master looked around at the edge of the crater near his feet as he pulled away from her touch and kicked at some rubble as if looking for something.

     “Your Padawan will be back soon with the Twi’lek you were protecting.” She made no attempt to curl the word ‘protecting’ into a sarcastic lilt, but Kendris glanced at her as if he’d heard it nonetheless. He huffed and continued digging.

     Misha sniffed the air and turned her head toward the alley where more people were gathering with their wounds, some weeping and carrying bodies of others. She turned toward Kendris, then back again.

     “We should help the wounded,” Misha said. The siren of an emergency aid speeder grew louder in the distance.

     Kendris continued kicking and plucking at the overturned rubble by his feet, grunting as he pushed heavier pieces of the ruined street aside.

     Misha held out a hand. A piece of rubble three meters away overturned revealing a glint of silver. The lightsaber hilt flew into her hand.

     She held it toward Kendris. “Now that you have this back, perhaps we can help those who need us.”

     Kendris took the weapon without a word. Though Miraluka couldn’t see it, he nodded before moving past her toward the alley.
Continue Reading »

E3PO is the official twitter tag for SWTOR coverage of E3

Today marks the official beginning of the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo. If you think that it will be hard to top the epic SWTOR trailer “Return” you might be wrong. What we have in line from E3 is a full day of end game, vehicle, Tatooine and hands on experience news. Here’s a chronological list of things to expect:

• EAGamer tweeted the following (link):
  

  If you are at #E3 be at the @EA booth at 12:30 sharp on Tues for a special @SWTOR experience you won’t want to miss. @biofeed #E3PO

  None else talked about this early, 12:30, announcement so we are curious if this was a wrong time conversion or a real event.

• There will be a live stream from the show floor and EA booth at 2PM PDT. Being show is SWTOR gameplay and there will be a Q&A session with one of the developers. They are labeling this event as “Exclusive Tatooine reveal” so I am guessing we will see Tatooine gameplay (DUH).
• We are promised images and video from the show floor throughout today from official sources so keep an eye out on our own coverage as well as official swtor.com site.
• Interviews and hands on sessions for fan sites will start at around 5PM PDT and we can expect to hear first impressions at about 7PM PDT.

A lot of people think that the “Return” trailer should not be the only awe inspiring news coming from Bioware about SWTOR. A lot of fan hopes are riding on what will be revealed today. We will be with you every step of the day with our man at the convention and us Live Blogging all the latest news as it happens, so make sure you check back in really soon, because our coverage of 2011 E3 is officially about to start.

During our last month’s visit to Bioware’s studio in Austin, Texas there was one moment I personally enjoyed almost more than playing the game. It was the Q&A session with the writing team of the Old Republic. Seeing all those people creating the awesome stories we’ll be experiencing in the game and hearing them talk about it openly and with clearly visible enthusiasm was just a perfect moment in time. I mean, I am a fan, there is no doubt of that, but, to see these people be just as enthusiastic about the game they are helping create was priceless. With hopes you will get to experience at least a small portion of what was felt in that room we bring you a video of the Q&A session with the writers and all of them talking about the favorite thing they’ve written for the game.
 

Today on twitter and the official SWTOR forums,  David Bass posted the following;

via twitter:

doctordake David Bass

If you’re going to E3 or live in the LA area, would you want to come to a Meet & Greet this year? Vote

and then on the official forums he posted the poll you can see here.

Hi everyone,

Since E3 isn’t open to the public, we’re considering holding a meet and greet in Los Angeles during the expo so that fans who are in the LA area can meet up with us one night and chat with the developers. Unfortunately, we wouldn’t be able to have the game playable at this meet and greet, but you’d get a chance to chat with those of us who’ll be at the show, and hear about some of the cool things that are happening inside E3.

We’d like to get a better idea of the size of group we’re looking at for an event like this, though. If you’d be interested in coming downtown one night between June 6-9 to meet up with the SW:TOR team, let us know in this thread!

Thanks,
David

Lets hope this comes to fruition because as a attendee of the recent Fan Site Summit at Austin, held by Bioware studios, I can surely tell you that these people would be a total blast to hang out with.  I highly recommend that if you have ever wanted to meet the people behind this game then you need to be here if it happens.  Log on to this thread and make your voice be heard.

Bioware has proven in the past that when the community shows a desire, they will try to make it happen.  If they are asking for your opinion then it’s obvious they think the need to do this is that important.

Rest assured that if it does happen, SWTOR-Life will be there covering it for you the fans of this game!  Be sure to follow us on twitter @Swtorcrafter and @SwtorLife to get the quickest updates about this and E3 2011 live from Los Angeles

Let your voice be heard!

UPDATE: SUNDAY MAY 15TH-EDITOR COMMENT

At the time of this update at mid afternoon Sunday we have seen what has happened so far on the thread and poll.  The thread has had:

1. 5,682  views
2. 161  replies
3. 607  people have voted on the poll
4. 172 of them or 28.34%    voted yes they would attend
5. 435 of them or 71.66%    voted no they would not attend

Within the thread we have seen these replies from the Developers:

In response to this from forum poster Cidran:

Originally Posted by Cidran

guess it really depends, what all does a meet and greet entail? like would it just be casual talk, any reveals? grab bags? interviews? im interested, but i dont know if there will be much there to encourage me to go.

Stephen Reid had this to say:

Well, it could be all of the above, or none of the above. So far we’re just trying to figure out if we should do it at all.

For those of you who can’t make the trip to LA, don’t despair. As I’ve said before, we’ll be at plenty of shows – before and after launch – in a number of different places.

He gives us enough to let us know that it is a important idea to them and that they are serious about possibly doing it now and into the future.  Bioware is a smart company, they know that the more they can make themselves available to the fans, the more the love for the project will grow within the community.  In my opinion that could only be good for the game and company as a whole.

GO VOTE!

UPDATE: TUESDAY MAY 17TH-EDITOR COMMENT

Well folks it seems that via David Bass on the official forums we will get our wish!  (assuming a suitable location can be acquired of course)  It does however seem like this will be an eventuality, I can’t wait to attend.  We will be bringing you coverage from this get together.

Here is what he had to say before closing the thread:

Thanks so much for the votes and the feedback, everyone! I think it’s pretty clear that a meet and greet is definitely doable at E3. I’m going to close this thread and get to work on planning something. We’ll post again once we have details to share.

And one final note for those of you considering dropping everything and flying into LA for this meetup: It’s really exciting to see all the enthusiasm towards this, but keep in mind that we’ll be doing plenty more events this year around the world, most of which are open to the public. You may want to hold off so that you can come to a public event and actually play the game. Just a suggestion.

UPDATE TUESDAY MAY 31ST-EDITOR COMMENT

Posted by Rockjaw aka Stephen Reid on twitter:

Rockjaw Stephen Reid

Looks like we are very close to getting a destination and time folks!

UPDATE TUESDAY JUNE 2ND-EDITOR COMMENT

Well today we got the word finally!  Some of the developers from Bioware will be at:

From the interview that me and Serge had with Damion Schubert and the Developer Q&A we attended with him, I got wind of something that has my ears perked for sure.  The mention or hinting at a new mechanic on the horizon for crew skills in SWTOR.

I was hit by the realization of what I think I understand them to be planning immediately.  In the Q&A with Damion Schubert when the first question of the session was asked to him, he replied with a response that included this little gem about a mystery “research system”

Continue Reading »

Hot off the twittersphere we got this announcement from Stephen Reid, aka @Rockjaw

@Rockjaw said: If you want to work in QA at BioWare on #SWTOR and live in Austin, TX (or nearby), you might want to head to @AustinBooks this Saturday.

This is a great opportunity to involve yourself in a career with Bioware if you live in the Austin Texas area.  I just wish I lived nearer to their headquarters as this is the field that I personally am employed in.  Quality Assurance can be a very rewarding career as you are in the position to effect the overall success of what ever project you are working on.  As someone involved in this field with Bioware, you will have the ability to help ensure that the realm of Star Wars the Old Republic is top notch for us all!

For any who are lucky enough to be in the area and apply, good luck to you from your friends at www.swtor-life.com !

🙂

Floodgates have opened and it is now widely known in the SWTOR community that there will be an event held this weekend at Bioware’s offices in Austin, Texas. The participants – fan site representatives. Fifteen fan sites will be attending. This seems to be an extension of events that were organized for regular press members at the recent UK event and for PC Gamer (they said in their article that they too were flown to Austin for two day SWTOR bonanza). Click here to read my full mission statement about the upcoming event

Fan Art by Redding

I don’t think anyone was expecting for this Friday update to outshine what we got in the past two updates that were leading up to, and covering PAX East info flood. It comes as no surprise then that we get a Fan Friday Update this week with TorWars.com having the spotlight on them through a Fan Site Q&A session. As Fan Fridays tend to provide, we also get some really cool fan art including the image above from forum user Redding. You can check out new Concept Art and official forum avatars if you read the official article here.

In addition to Fan Friday we get a Studio Insider article describing how cinematic in-game cut-scenes are made. To walk us through the inside work of the process we have Animator Andrew Lauretta. He describes how rough motion captured data is refined and tweaked and then how computer generated actors are added into the scene to give us what Bioware games are best known for – memorable cinematics.

Best for last is the community Q&A on flashpoints. World Designer Jesse Sky answers some of the questions posted in the official forums in the flashpoints Q&A thread. There are several interesting bits about companions and general flashpoint mechanic (and -wow- how Story comes into play). You can post questions about Classes in the new Q&A thread for this month.

Despite being a Fan Friday, this Friday update also brought us another Q&A with the developers section. Along with that, the developers have been very active on the forums lately and they have been answering various questions from the fans. Here’s a compilation of the most interesting Q&A from all of these sources.

Q: I would like to see an option to merchant sell all gray loot items in your inventory at once. Going a step further, if there was a way to mark items in your bag as you loot them so that when you sell them off everything that was marked is sold.

A: In TOR, you indeed have the option to command your faithful (or scornful) companion to make a trip to the nearest market to lighten your backpack and fatten your wallet by selling objects of purely monetary value.
Answered by: Georg Zöller, Principal Lead Combat Designer
Source

Q: I really hope they give us access to on-ship storage. Our personal vault should be there rather than some imaginary bank system for items that we access from everywhere in the universe.

A: Your ship’s cargo hold is, indeed, your bank.
Answered by: Damion Schubert, Lead Combat Designer
Source

Q: I hope Bioware has a Beta test just for PvP, I’m worried about balance…

A: Have no doubt, we aim to ensure every Advanced Class has at least one spec that has its place in competitive PvP. The PvP team is already diligently tuning classes based on testing results and will continue to do so as new functions come online. By functions, I mean things like enabling Smugglers in cover to be immune to ‘charge’ and ‘pull’ abilities.
Answered by: Gabe Amatangelo, Lead PvP Designer
Source

Q: Will armor be HP based? wich means you can loose your armor due to wear and tear?

A: Armor takes damage during gameplay, but still offers full benefits until such time that it is completely broken. Armor can be repaired for credits. No, we are not looking at permanently destroying items.
Answered by: Damion Schubert, Lead Combat Designer
Source

Q: In this game, we know the reasons why the Jedi hate the Sith so much. And most of us recognize that the Jedi are a pretty “good” organization. But what hasn’t been talked about a huge amount is why the Sith hate the Jedi. How do the Sith view the Jedi? Why do they think they would make better rulers? Do the Sith actually think that the Sith themselves are “evil”? Do they believe that Force has two sides, a dark side and a light?

A: Sith are evil.

The Sith philosophy is evil and encourages evil in its participants. We can get into endless philosophical discussions about whether anything is actually evil or actually good but if we are speaking from our modern, western view on the concept of evil then the Sith clearly qualify. They are encouraged to put the personal over the group, power over compassion and to judge everything’s worthiness to survive on its ability to fight for that survival. Mercy, sympathy, generosity, these are seen as weaknesses. Anger and rage are seen as strengths. These are not people most of us want to work with or have as neighbors.

That does not mean, however, that the Sith see themselves as evil.
…
In the Star Wars universe, followers of the Sith philosophy genuinely believe that these things we deem evil, are actually in the best interests of a society. They look at the disorder, corruption and infighting of the Republic and they scoff. “What those people lack,” an Imperial thinks, “is strong leadership.”
…
It’s equally important to remember that you don’t have to believe in any of this to play on the Empire’s side in The Old Republic. You can be the exception to the rule. You are merely making a choice to be someone who was born on that side of the fence. Or, in the case of the Bounty Hunter, someone who tends to work in that part of space. The light side Sith who works tirelessly to make his Empire a better place is a deeply compelling character.
Answered by: Daniel Erickson, Master of the Universe
Source
Editor Note: I highly recommend you go and read all of Daniel’s answer because, as always, he was very detailed in his explanation.

You can read the full Q&A from last Friday update by following this link