For this Friday’s update we were treated to a video from GamesCom of the play through of the Eternity Vault, operations raid, narrated by Dallas Dickenson. This raid or as Bioware likes to call them “Operation” looks like a blast. Groups of 8 or 16 players Republic and Empire alike will discover this mysterious location on the planet Belsavis and attempt to confront ancient force-wielders and other serious contained prisoners that who’s release could threaten the entire galaxy.
There is a special day dedicated to press members only and this is one of the best things I remember about GamesCom. The crowds are much more manageable and if you scheduled ahead you can get most of your work done that first day; fill in the gaps during the other days. This day also is filled with new information and this year is no different.
First we have the video of the presentation held yesterday during the EA Press Conference reorded and posted on youtube by instarwars.de Grman SWTOR fansite:
Next is video of SWTOR booth brought to you by SWTOR EU fansite:
The juiciest piece that came out of GamesCom so far is this video by Darth Hater crew showing The Pit. It is a PvP arena with Capture the Flag rules, only you control a ball and not a flag and you can pass it around. It is a kind of deadly football with lightsabers and blasters and in game it is called Huttball.
We would also like to congratulate Bioware for Winning the Best Online Game of the show at GamesCom this year. It is very well deserved.
This video has all the details and it sounds like a real hoot! I can not wait to see what the community comes up with for this. If you remember the recent San Diego Comic Con you may have seen some of the footage of all the awesome cosplay costumes that came out in full force for this event. Hopefully this contest will bring out some of those along with new costumes never before seen.
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.
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
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.
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.
Published by Mikro under E3,news on Jun. 07. 2011.
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:
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.
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”
Swtor-Life.com has been given the honor of interviewing Damion Schubert, the Lead Systems Designer for Bioware, as part of the Fan Site Summit 2011. We gathered the majority of questions for the interview from the community and we thank you for making your voice heard.
Join us now as we dive right into just who Damion is for the company and what he has been involved with in the past, and the goodies we have to look forward to in the Crew Skills system! There are exclusive reveals about the yet unannounced aspects of the Crew Skills system to be found in this interview and we will be providing a transcript shortly.
A big thank you to all who posted questions in this thread on the official forums where we asked the community for their choice of questions to go to Damion, some of you got the answers I hope you were looking for.
Join me in my next Swtorcrafter crafting article where I discuss this information in depth, there is a ton of it to wring out of this interview!
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.
