We’re in Cologne, Germany and we visited the SWTOR booth, where we found level 20 characters fighting it out in a new warzone. The objective of the warzone is to activate the two pylons which then start a countdown before they explode. To save yourself from the explosion all players must go to the middle room where they fight it out until the explosion is over. All the while each kill brings you closer to activating a special end event that will defeat the losing team for good. This last special effect is still not present in the game but we can now show you footage of how the warzone is played in this exclusive video in all its glorious HD quality (and people passing by)

BioWare announced today that the Ranked Warzones feature will not be included in tomorrow’s 1.2 update.

Despite some wonderful testing from volunteers on the Public Test Server it was decided that Ranked warzones is a feature that just needs a little more polish before it is released to the live servers. This was not a decision made lightly, but in order to make sure this feature is everything the developers, and players, hope it will be it will be postponed for the time being. Daniel Erickson, lead game designer for SWTOR, had this to say:

Hey everybody,

It is with great reluctance that I have to announce Ranked Warzones are not going live with Game Update 1.2: Legacy. We had a fantastic run of testing on the Public Test Server and I can’t begin to thank the community enough for their tireless advocacy for this feature and the time people took to file bugs and voice their concerns.

After careful consideration, it is clear that to make Ranked Warzones the feature we all want it to be is going to take a bit more time. I apologize for any disappointment this may cause and ask for your patience as we work to make sure the Ranked Warzone Preseason launch is polished and fun. With Legacy, the new Warzone, Operation, and Flashpoint, as well as many other amazing features of Game Update 1.2 ready to go, we’re very excited for tomorrow’s additions.

In the future we’ll be rolling the Ranked Warzone Preseason out in phases, listening carefully to player feedback and making adjustments as we go. The first phase will be full team, eight-player queuing only and from there we’ll look at next steps as Preseason progresses. In the meantime we have provided an alternate purchase route for War Hero gear so you can start building your set while figuring out your teams.

Daniel Erickson
Lead Game Designer

This is, without a doubt, a big disappointment to a lot of players out there. Hopefully the team at BioWare will be able to get any issues they have with the feature fixed as soon as possible so it can be rolled out to the live servers.

Prologue / Act 1: Scene 1 / Act 1: Scene 2 / Act 1: Scene 3

Intermission

I am pausing here to take a good look around. I have talked about the first three planets that have actual PvP on them. I have also touch on the two planets that have no actual world PvP on them after the origin planets.

I want to give you a list of planets and their levels for each faction. There is not much  difference in the list, except that the origin planets are different and there are two planets that trade places depending on the faction. Other than that, both factions are on the same planets at the same levels. Continue Reading »

We’ve heard that it was demoed the first day of GamesCom 2011. Now we get to see the demo video by ourselves in glorious HD. The pit is the latest PvP warzone we are hearing about and it is the place where Huttball matches are being held. Hutball is a vicious sport played where two sides try to pass the ball across the opponents goal line. All moves are allowed including force lightning, stabbing and cheating. See for yourselves in this fun little video showcase of the Pit. I wonder if this is the PvP arena Daniel Erickson told us about in an interview at E3. He mentioned that it is so much fun punting your opponents into fire.
 

 
There are also two pieces of news you should all check out. First is a Q&A with Bioware’s good doctors Ray and Greg. They talk about beta weekends and raids and you can check it all out at Ask A Jedi.
 
There was apparently an impromptu Q&A session held on Twitter with Stephen Reid and Gabe Amatangelo straght from Germany. You can check out the full transcript at Tor Wars
 

Machinima released a video interview with The Old Republic’s Lead PvP Designer, Gabe Amatangelo. They discussed in detail some of the PvP mechanics and what they’ll bring. Here are some highlights:

• There will be experience awarded for PvP
• There will be token awards to get “identifiable” gear (so you get recognized as PvP player)
• There are different levels of PvP gear (level 15 and level 50)
• Alderaan warzone usually lasts between 5 and 15 minutes
• Next warzone (derelict starship one) will have Assault type game mechanics

At the point of talking about whether there will be “seasonal updates” of PvP gear (so that it gets upgraded once first set of PvP gear gets “outdated”), Gabe Amatangelo mentioned that: “Yes there will be multiple level 50 PvP sets“. This leads us to believe that Level 50 is the max level we will be seeing in The Old Republic.

You can watch the interview below and the “multiple level 50 PvP sets” bit is around 2:22:

(Thanks @Adaram on Twitter for catching this)

In what is looking like one of the most epic Friday updates ever the new PvP Warzone Trailer got officially released by swtor.com. You can watch it bellow along with the screenshot gallery.

Officially a neutral world, Alderaan has become the focus of Republic and Imperial political maneuvering. Even as conflict between Alderaan’s noble houses threatens to turn into civil war, Republic and Imperial forces engage in a secret battle that could decide the planet’s fate. High in the mountains, both sides fight for control of Alderaan’s massive planetary defense cannon—a weapon powerful enough to devastate an enemy’s fleet and ensure domination over the planet’s skies.

The battle on Alderaan is our first detailed look at organized team Player vs Player (PvP) in The Old Republic™. To secure the planetary defense cannon, players must deplete the enemy transport ship’s shields, driving their forces to retreat or be annihilated. Players must work together to control the defense system’s artillery units if they are to protect their fleet and emerge victorious.

There is an Electronics Arts event being held in London, and as we reported earlier a big announcement for The Old Republic was anticipated at the event. Bioware delivered in a big way on this promise and gave us details on both crafting and PvP warzones.

SWTOR Crafting

Crafting will have three major groups – Gathering, Crafting, and Missions. For now, we have been presented with two professions in each of the groups:

Crafting system is completely innovated in comparison to what we are used to seeing in other MMOs. You will be able to use your companions for crafting! The “Crew Skill crafting system” means that you will be able to send your companions on crafting tasks and specialize them in certain crafting branches. Sending out your companion on a Treasure Hunt can bring you a rare item based on random number generator. Certain companions will excel better at certain professions than others (the example provided was Vette, Sith warrior companion, who will excel at Treasure Hunting). You will be able to send companions on crafting missions from anywhere in the world and you will be able to queue your tasks for them. It is still unclear whether different companions will be able to have different crafting tasks at the same time or you can have one task at a time (with multiple companions working on it), but I believe we will soon find out.
A very interesting mechanic was mentioned concerning gathering. If you have your companion with you adventuring; once you see something that you can gather, instead of moving your character there to gather, your companion will do it for you while you continue fighting or doing whatever you were doing.

For all you crafting buffs out there here’s a very interesting quote from the event:

It is a very robust system, and there are still some details that we haven’t revealed yet which I know players are going to be excited about. I will just say there are some mechanics to it that will allow players who are more involved in crafting to really get deeply involved in crafting and be appropriately rewarded for it.

SWTOR PvP Warzones

We received details on Alderaan’s warzone that was previously announced at E3 but without going into too much depth. The most important points are:

• 8 vs. 8 combat
• objective-based PvP with a goal of controlling an area
• rewards tokens
• rewards XP

The way this warzone will work is that each team starts at their drop ship in the skies. They have means of transportation to get to the ground. Once there they fight to get control over planetary’s defenses. Whoever controls the defenses starts firing on the other team’s drop ship. The winner is the team that destroys the other team’s dropship.

The other thing we learned is that each warzone will have different objectives and mechanics involved. For example, the next warzone that will be revealed will take place on a derelict starship and will have completely different mechanics than Alderan’s. Here’s a quote from Darth Hater’s original article that I found most interesting:

BioWare’s PvP designer Gabe Amatangelo said they wanted Warzones to fit in with the story element of the game. When they looked at PvP, they decided that banners, flags and points were “too game-y.”

These two reveals have once again changed our way of looking at this game once again. The crafting system is much more intricate than we initially though it will be. The warzones mechanics looks legit and fun from a PvP buff point of view. Everything is starting to fall right into place and we are now more excited about the game than ever before.