HoloNet Links #20

Another great week to be a fan of Star Wars: The Old Republic and Corellian Run Radio. I’m sure by now most everyone has heard about the “HUGE” Beta test. You can read more details about in Bioware’s Beta announcement. In Dev notes, Stephen Reid confirms the targeted dates for the Beta Testing Weekend and says to check your email for specific details. Thank you Bioware!

Corellian Run Radio has a new staff writer, Maer. She will be writing a weekly column, My Two Credits. Be sure to check it out. The guys from “Sunny’s Diner” stopped by the CRR podcast and brought their “casual” to the show. The ladies made an appearance on the podcast, “Pink Side of the Force”. Lots of great info from Republic Trooper, MMORPG.com and much more, so let’s punch the hyperdrive and go.

More links about Beta invites, Facebook image & much more after the Jump…

Dev notes

• Hot tidbits

StephenReid General Discussion -> Next Beta Testing Weekend – FAQ

Updated the FAQ with this question and answer:

When will the Beta Testing Weekend start?
We are targeting November 25-28 for our upcoming Beta Testing Weekend. Exact timing on when you will be invited will be specified in your invite email.

DavidBass General Discussion -> beta keys at curse.com NOW

Hi all,

Just a reminder that if you were a registered member of our website on or before November 11th, 2011, you will be invited to the future weekend test. Regardless of whether you received an email last week or not, please do not take beta keys off of any external websites if you are already a registered member of our site. Let’s leave them for the more needy, please.

• Georg’s Goodies

This week we look back at an interview Republic Trooper had with Georg Zoeller. The interview focused on the combat mechanics and abilities of the Trooper class. It is really a great article and huge kudos to Republic Trooper for the wonderful write up and interview.

Republic Trooper: We’ve spoken with some large guilds that are intending on running exclusively with Troopers. How viable would it be to attempt Flashpoints and Operations with only the Republic’s finest?

Georg Zoeller: Absolutely possible. The screen might get a bit busy from all the gunfire, but other than that, there’s nothing that would prevent you from doing this. You’d obviously have to bring team members from both Advanced Classes (Vanguard and Commando) to cover all bases.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Republic Trooper site and don’t miss their fan fiction, Lost Tales of the Republic.

Speaking of the Trooper class, did everyone see the Republic Trooper versus Sith Inquisitor video? It showcases footage of gameplay and developers from both classes discussing why their class would win. If you haven’t seen it, go check it out. Which class do you think would win? Let us know in the comments below.

Star Wars Community News & Events

• Corellian Run Radio’s Weekly Nav Coordinates

Remember to checkout Maer’s new weekly column, “My Two Credits.” If you missed Maer’s first story or any other of our articles or columns, don’t worry a bit, Corellian Run Radio has you covered! Just below we have all the top stories just a click away.

11/11 CRR on TORWars Fansite Summit Unpodcast by Kathy

11/11 Game Testing & You by Carla

11/11 Fansite Summit 2: James Ohlen Q&A by Kathy

11/14 Guild Checkpoint featuring Redeemed by Jason Taylor

11/15 Episode 37: Post-Fansite Summit, Sunny’s Diner Brings the Casual – podcast

11/15 My Two Credits – Photo-receptor Focus on: Speculation by Maer

11/17 CRR on Pink Side of the Force by Kathy

11/17 Targeted Game Testing Weekend Approaches by Carla

11/17 Speculation: NDA to be lifted before the next Beta Weekend? by Mark

• SWTOR Video

This week for the video section, I went away from the music videos, but still focused on Star Wars: The Old Republic. Many of you may know “Pokket” from GameBreaker TV. She also does a lot of live streaming for various games. Now she has a video column at the MMORPG.com website. This week she discusses her time in SWTOR Beta. There is no NDA violation here; she is part of the media and only talks about her adventures on the Republic side up to level 16. If you want to keep tabs on her you can follow her @Pokketsays.

• Facebook Image of the Week

The image this week is another intense fight scene from the Eternity Vault. This time we see the end boss, “The Infernal One.” He looks very upset to see “visitors”, to say the least. Do you think that you and your fellow gamers can take this boss down?

That’s all this week from the HoloNet Links at Corellian Run Radio. Only 32 days till release folks! I want to wish everyone safe travels, as they maybe heading to family gatherings for Thanksgiving next week. Don’t worry about missing any stories the HoloNet Links at CRR will have you covered.

If you have an interesting, funny, or thought provoking Star Wars Old Republic link, please let me know via email at jason@corellianrun.com, join the CRR forums, or in the Facebook group. See you next week!

  Today, MMORPG’s Pokket, (Hillary Nicole) posted a video preview of Star Wars: The Old Republic, sharing her beta access experience with the community. Although the video footage consists of only previously released trailers, it’s nice to hear, rather than read, her impressions of both the Smuggler, and the Jedi Consular classes. Pokket doesn’t give [...]

  Today, MMORPG’s Pokket, (Hillary Nicole) posted a video preview of Star Wars: The Old Republic, sharing her beta access experience with the community. Although the video footage consists of only previously released trailers, it’s nice to hear, rather than read, her impressions of both the Smuggler, and the Jedi Consular classes. Pokket doesn’t give [...]

MMORPG.com recently launched a new video series entitled Game Face, which is produced by someone many of you may be familiar with from her work on Gamebreaker TV. Her name is Hillary Nicole, otherwise better known as Pokket!

This episode of Game Face features Pokket’s preview of about 15 levels of two Republic classes: the Smuggler and the Jedi Consular. She discusses each class and what it was like to play, dark and light side choices (and the sense they didn’t always make) and a bit of lore as well.

Pokket is a lot of fun and a gamer that definitely knows her stuff, especially when it comes to MMOs! I got to meet and hang out with Pokket, Jasmine and Gary from the GameBreaker crew at E3 earlier this year. We all went bowling, of all things, and it was a lot of fun!

The video is well worth a watch, and be sure to keep an eye out for future episodes where Pokket promises to do more TOR including some live streaming! Also check out her YouTube channel, because she has lots of other great content too, including her recent Diablo III beta impressions.

Michael Bitton over at MMORPG.com has published his latest editorial in regard to BioWare’s upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic. In this latest piece Bitton speculates on the day that BioWare will finally decide to drop the NDA (or Non-Disclosure Agreement) that any fan lucky enough to participate in one of SWTOR’s beta is bound [...]

I know I wasn’t the only one excited when BioWare announced that there would be 15 flashpoints available when Star Wars: The Old Republic launches. So far, we only have information about a handful of these instanced, story-driven group dungeons. Today, MMORPG.com has posted an article highlighting their beta experiences with the Esseles, and Hammer [...]

MMORPG.com’s Michael Bitton has published an article on Star Wars: The Old Republic this morning entitled “Spoilers Suck“. The gist of the article, as you might imagine, is that having the content of the SWTOR storylines spoiled may be something that happens often in-game and could end up being difficult to avoid. Bitton says he’ll [...]

Star Wars: The Old Republic news embargo-lifting story #461: MMORPG.com has published a number of articles under a banner they are calling a “Full Beta Preview”. I find the title a bit misleading as there are no Empire classes or higher-level play articles, however, there is plenty of good content on offer. There are, of [...]

Kathy and Roxanne had the pleasure of guesting on a special New York Comic Con edition of TORWars. Immediately following the Saturday Q&A session by MMORPG.com, we followed TORWars‘ Jeff and Deirdre Hollis and Justin of Jen’Jidai and Fragworld into a secret room in the convention hall for a little post-panel discussion. We only had to shoo one person away — sorry whoever you are, we didn’t mean to glare so violently! — and had a great time talking about what we learned that day: dungeon finders, heroic flashpoints, little boys with romance on their minds, and more.

Check out the mini-podcast at TORWars here.

Comments after the jump.

I have collected some of the videos that have surfaced of the Star Wars: The Old Republic panel and the later Q and A at this year’s New York Comic Con. It won’t make up for you and I not having actually been there in New York but grab your coffee and come watch these [...]