One of the big items of news that came from the UK player event SWTORGB, that I especially liked was the information we got on the mysterious “Datacrons”. Credited by Daniel Erickson as the first known person in a community play event to discover one, “Kandycane” brings us this tidbit on the discovery and it’s use from his game play impressions…..
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SWTOR’s current class system is nothing new, Ultima online had this. Even though it did not have a class system in the traditional form we all know now.
Yet, it did give you the ability to take on a number of roles, Mage, Warrior etc.
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!
Over at Random House.com they have released the cover art and short synopsis of the authors plus, have given a sale date for us in the United States, thanks to Matthias I have recently learned that the German version is already for sale on sites such as Amazon.com.
The book “The Complete Vader” is written by Ryder Windham and Peter Vilmur and is a book about the cultural impact Darth Vader has had on our society. I for one look forward to reading this as the Anakin/Vader story is my favorite plot line of the whole Star Wars universe!
Synopsis
Star Wars: The Complete Vader is the definitive book on the history, myth, and cultural impact of Darth Vader. From his early development in the first Star Wars film by George Lucas, to the new legends created in comics, videogames, and novels, to his ongoing appearances on everything from television commercials to bedspreads, Vader presents a complete view in all his incarnations as the Dark Lord of the Sith. Going beyond the films to cover his further adventures in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, the book combines new insight with exclusive interviews and photographs from the Lucasfilm Archives. Interactive reproductions of rare memorabilia fire the imagination, while pages packed with never-seen-before images explore the world’s endless fascination with the notorious Darth Vader.
It will be a hardback, have 192 pages and goes on sale for $60.00 on October the 18th in the USA.
Don’t forget to get yours, I know I will be getting mine.
🙂
Paul S. Kemp’s new novel Deceived hit the store shelves today! Delving into the story of the rise of Darth Malgus. This is a story that to me, seems like it would be totally epic and I can not wait to dive right in!
From the official swtor site we get this description:
Over 3,500 years before the rise of Darth Vader, another Sith Lord’s name commanded fear and respect across the galaxy: Darth Malgus. The mysterious Sith Lord orchestrated the destruction of a prominent Jedi Temple, setting the stage for the tenuous peace of the Treaty of Coruscant.
In Deceived, you’ll learn the story of Darth Malgus and his rise to power. Delve into the dark secrets and history that shaped one of the most powerful Sith Lords the Old Republic would ever know…
Deceived is a novel set in the Old Republic and written by Paul S. Kemp with the cooperation and creative consultation of BioWare and LucasArts. You can preview the first chapter on our site, and view the second and third chapters on starwars.com!
The book will be available at retailers in the US on March 22nd, but you can pre-order your copy right now at the following online retailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Powell’s, IndieBound, Titan Books (UK), and other retailers.
The book will be available in Germany (Panini) Spring 2011 and in France (Fleuve Noir) Winter 2011.
Get yours today!
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It was as I had foreseen, for some unknown reason the power of the darkside has failed me.
As soon as the second game began I had to watch as my trusty sidekick Jango Fett (my son) has met his match. On the third turn he was lining up his star craft to make a run at the GO and the prize money, unfortunately for him he rolled too big. Back to the same Millennium Falcon hovering over Echo Base on Hoth he has hit 3 times already! With only 50 credits, and all of his properties mortgaged he is down for the count.
I tried to explain to him that the darkside was a fickle master, but he would have none of it. He was convinced that there was a plot against us by the rebel scum. 4 turns later I am starting to believe him. As I carefully work my way around the board I am starting to sense that the makings of a final blow are about to be dealt to me and my minions.
Through the giggling and the whispering, Han had somehow convinced Luke to trade him two yellow ones for one green one. Conveniently that gave Luke possession of Endor and all of the green ones, while just around the corner Han had somehow gained access to my death star and has control of all the yellows and the Cloud City and the reds now!
As I line up my fury to make a run through the Endor region, I roll the dice and feel the power of the force from my *daughter Luke, beckon me to come to the surface in the Endor Forest to settle this once and for all. I have finally realized that it’s a trap, and that the dark side has failed me. To the Endor Forest to make my last stand Vader goes.
High fives all around between the girls, (Mom was secretly watching from the kitchen and had to get one as well. It was evident at this point that there were plans against us!) My master plot was for me and Jango to secretly team up to overthrow the Rebel scum. How dare they have a master plan to counteract my master plan!
When Mom joined in on the high fives Darth Vader and Jango Fett caught each others eyes and at that moment, we both realized who was really in control of the plans. Luke and Han were just pawns in *her elaborate scheme to see us fall. This is most disturbing, I will have to contact my master and tell him of this new disturbance in the force.
As I make my escape I give one last moment to a snarky comment directed at her to let her know I am onto her and known her game, she replies with, “I got your force power right here you geek”
Oh noes, it burns, she got me. 🙂
My question to you today is:
Based on your normal play style how do you see yourself acquiring the materials you need to craft in SWTOR?
Will you use the auction house mechanic relying on other players to provide the auctions for you to buy, or will you rely on yourself and your companions to gather what you need via the gathering mechanics and the missions?
Read on!
It played out just like always, I play Darth Vader or I don’t play. Yeah I know sometimes I can bring the drama, but really, I play Vader.
My trusty sidekick my son, pronounced that he was going to be the bounty hunter, specifically Jango Fett, because he wanted to be aligned with me from the sith side. (I can always count on him to be at my side)
At the sound of this declaration the two girls sitting across from me made their intentions known (rebel scum, I should have known). My oldest daughter decided upon Luke Skywalker, (she would have rather had a Anakin figure cause she thinks he is cute). My middle eldest daughter chose to be Han Solo cause she said him and Luke were best friends.
So there we have it, a sith warrior and bounty hunter combo vrs smuggler and jedi knight, this ought to be interesting. Based on what I think I know about SWTOR game mechanics, even though it seems balanced with some dps/dps-heal combo I am still betting heavily on the dark side at the start of this one, the force is strong with me after all.
We started the game and immediately my oldest daughter within 4 turns had all of the light blue properties. This is not going well. Vader and Jango were having a run of bad luck and between the docking tax, and letting the wookie win we were slowly loosing our chance at available property.
Of course on her next turn she immeditley put up 3 Millenium Falcons, rebel scum! We proceeded for the next few turns where me and Jango began a viscious cycle of having to stay in them every time we went by, we are almost out of credits and we now own barely more than a few utilities and some random property that we cant make work between us. Things are getting dire for my command of this unit.
All the while on the other side of the universe my youngest daughter now has control of all the yellow and is starting on the reds as well! Who knew that Han Solo could keep his dealings so discreet and fly under the radar like that?
I am not even sure if they will be able to see the master plot unfold in front of them like I had planned.
They may have thwarted me before I even got started. What started out as a secret plot between Lord Vader and Jango, to destroy Luke Skywalker once and for all and end *her reign of terror (she has won three games in a row) has turned into a what looks like a complete wipe for the forces of the Dark side.
As we start the game for the second night I now have 300 credits and my partner has about the same. I am not sure that the forces of the darkside will prevail because as it stands now we can barely roll the dice on the board because of all the credits stuck under the rebel side.
I am starting to think about making my way to the escape pods, I will hold on for just a little bit longer…..
Read the continuation of this story in the second part entitled “Confessions of a Star Wars Dad, Vader’s last stand at Endor“.
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. 🙂
Just like the awesome community manager he is Stephen Reid has no sooner had his feet hit the dirt in Boston and he is already filling us in on what to expect from them at PAX.
In the dev tracker we get the following response on what panels the Bioware developers wil be speaking at during the conference.
Here is the list, read on and if you are lucky enough to attend, have fun trying to make them all and still play the game! I wish all the developers and the fans good luck and hope to see some great coverage coming our way soon!
(lucky bastards) 🙂
Stephen Reid:
Hello from Boston!
With PAX East 2011 just a day away – well, give or take about eight hours, given my late post – I’m very pleased to tell you about a few guest appearances BioWare staff members will be making on various panels over the weekend.
Please note, these are not official panels for Star Wars: The Old Republic. They are panels on various subjects that we were asked to provide speakers for. If you attend any of these panels, there is no guarantee that The Old Republic will even be spoken of… well alright, it’s pretty likely.
However, like I said, they’re not official panels for TOR and we’re not aiming to make huge announcements at any of them! In that vein, we will also not be providing ‘official’ coverage of them. However, I expect a few fansites might pop along. (And to them, I apologize for the late notification!)
They’ll all be very interesting panels to attend, and now we have all the details confirmed we wanted to give PAX attendees a chance to organize their schedules around them. So, without further ado, here are the details, in chronological order, as lifted from the official PAX East schedule:
PANEL: Video Game Comics: Lifting the Curse
LOCATION: Wyvern Theatre
TIME: Friday, 10:30am – 11:30amDESCRIPTION: Comic books based on video games have not traditionally been very well received. While some have sold well, most are at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to critics and direct market sales. How can the tide turn? What needs to be in a video game comic to make it worth reading? And could Video Game comics wind up being the savior of the comic book industry? Join representatives from across the comic book industry and moderator Lucas Siegel, Site Editor of Newsarama.com as they figure out how to remove the curse of the terrible video game comic.
Panelists include: Lucas Siegel [Site Editor, Newsarama] and Rob Chestney, [Creative Services Manager, BioWare Austin, and author of Star Wars: The Old Republic – Threat of Peace (Dark Horse Comics)]
PANEL: Interactive Drama: Dialogue as Gameplay
LOCATION: Cat Theatre
TIME: Friday, 2:00pm – 3:00pmDESCRIPTION: Do narrative games provide dialogue choices that enhance gameplay? Is it important to develop relationships through interactive choices between player and non-player characters? How are interactive conversation choices designed and how important is the user interface? What does it mean to experience Interactive Drama in a gameplay mechanic of dialogue choices?
Panelists include: Jonathon Myers [Co-Founder, Writer, Reactive Games], Stephen Dinehart [Chief Wizard, NarrWare], Dan Tanguay [Design Specialist, Vicarious Visions], Emily Short [Interactive Fiction Author, Independent], Jeff Orkin [PhD Candidate, AI Researcher, MIT Media Lab], Martin VanVelsen [Senior Research Engineer, Carnegie Mellon University], Daniel Erickson [Writing Director, BioWare Austin]
PANEL: MMORPG.com: The Future of Online Gaming
LOCATION: Naga Theatre
TIME: Saturday, 5:00pm – 6:00pmA panel of MMORPG experts gather to chat with fans on where the online game market is going. With games moving into the mobile space, free to play pricing models and five major launches in 2011 the online market is in for a major year. The panel will have speakers from some of the top upcoming games in the online space plus legends in the industry. Fan will be able to ask questions and get answers from top development studios about upcoming games as we hope to explore where online games will be going for the next decade.
Panelists include: Curt Schilling [38 Studios], Scott Hartsman [Trion], Colin Johanson [ArenaNet], Craig Alexander [Turbine], Garret Fuller [MMORPG.com] and James Ohlen [BioWare Austin]
If you make it to PAX, check out these panels, folks!
