The past two weeks have served up a heaping helping of news and rumors. We break down everything from the developer walkthrough to some interesting community creations. Details are in the notes below…give it a listen and let us know what you think!
News From the Galactic Republic
GamesCom Developer Walkthrough
- Bounty Hunter
- Smuggler
- Korriban / Sith Warrior
- Flashpoint: “Highly customized story and gameplay experience”
- Detailed breakdown at Darth Hater
SWTOR Localized to French and German
- French and German versions of the website AND game
- Includes forums, Holonet, timeline videos, etc
- Very important to building a global community
Stories From the Outer Rim
SWTOR Release Rumor
- How we’re going to treat these rumors
- French site reports reliable source says October of 2010
- Poll Results
Community Highlight
Heroes of the Old Republic
- Old-style radio drama created by community member DeaconX
- Prelude tells the story of the Deception trailer from the perspective of
- Episode I picks up with a swoop race on Ord Mantell, follows the story of young Falco Danner
Twitter Questions
@COMMUNISTROBOT – Should gear color schemes auto-adjust/change depending on your environment. i.e. snow cammo, jungle cammo, etc. /discuss
@gem1138 – My hype has definitely raised after watching the walkthrough! The kick to the nuts followed by the headshot was fantastic!
@sirdesmond – In the multiplayer dialogue cutscenes, could playing with people u dont know screw stuff up if they say something u wouldnt? (DIALOG CLIP – Daniel Erickson, Lead Writer)
The past two weeks have served up a heaping helping of news and rumors. We break down everything from the developer walkthrough to some interesting community creations. Details are in the notes below…give it a listen and let us know what you think!
News From the Galactic Republic
GamesCom Developer Walkthrough
- Bounty Hunter
- Smuggler
- Korriban / Sith Warrior
- Flashpoint: “Highly customized story and gameplay experience”
- Detailed breakdown at Darth Hater
SWTOR Localized to French and German
- French and German versions of the website AND game
- Includes forums, Holonet, timeline videos, etc
- Very important to building a global community
Stories From the Outer Rim
SWTOR Release Rumor
- How we’re going to treat these rumors
- French site reports reliable source says October of 2010
- Poll Results
Community Highlight
Heroes of the Old Republic
- Old-style radio drama created by community member DeaconX
- Prelude tells the story of the Deception trailer from the perspective of
- Episode I picks up with a swoop race on Ord Mantell, follows the story of young Falco Danner
Twitter Questions
@COMMUNISTROBOT – Should gear color schemes auto-adjust/change depending on your environment. i.e. snow cammo, jungle cammo, etc. /discuss
@gem1138 – My hype has definitely raised after watching the walkthrough! The kick to the nuts followed by the headshot was fantastic!
@sirdesmond – In the multiplayer dialogue cutscenes, could playing with people u dont know screw stuff up if they say something u wouldnt? (DIALOG CLIP – Daniel Erickson, Lead Writer)
The Twitter world was going nuts yesterday wondering when the game play demo would be released for Star Wars: The Old Republic, and yesterday afternoon it finally happened. Over on IGN’s website you can find a four part video series that combined is over 20 minutes long. The demo is full of action-packed SWTOR combat footage, voice dialog chats, and beautiful planet landscapes in the upcoming game. Mostly what we see is nothing more than the things we already know in finally being played out. Although watching it answered a lot of questions it also raised a fresh new batch as well. We should be recording episode 4 in the next few days so stayed tuned to get our full opinions on this exciting new video.
What are your thoughts after watching these videos? Are you more excited or could you care less now?
Earlier this week a French site, Star Wars Universe (English translation here), reported that they had learned, via a reliable source within LucasArts, that SWTOR was on track to be released in October of 2010. Let’s go ahead and break this down and see, based on previous releases, how accurate this may be.
First, we’ve got to look at the MMO giant, World of Warcraft. Blizzard made it’s official announcement that the game was in the works on September 2, 2001. After much development and a rather significant open beta, WoW was released to the public on November 23, 2004…3 years after their initial press release. Another genre favorite, Guild Wars, took about two years to create its first incarnation with an announcement in April of 2003 and a release in September 2005. Keep in mind that the scale of SWTOR greatly outweighs both of these games, especially the latter.
With some kind of reference for the industry standard games, next we need to see where The Old Republic is at in its development cycle. Bioware Austin was formed in early 2006 with the sole purpose of creating SWTOR. The official announcment of the game came on October 7th, 2008. It is incredibly important to remember that at the time of this press release, the team at Bioware had a fully functioning game that employees were playing on a daily basis. If the folks over at Star Wars Universe really do have a reliable connection who believes release is October 2010, that’s a four and a half year development period. Pretty hefty, right? With the amount of content that is going into this game, and the team’s dedication and demand for perfection, I would say this rumor certainly holds some weight. In which case, I am super stoked!!
Do you think the rumor is accurate? If so, will we see a public beta as soon as Spring of next year? Vote in the poll and let us know what you think in the comments!
[poll id="3"]
With little news coming from the SWTOR site and Comic-Con, we break down some of the finer points of group play and the concept of companion characters in an MMO setting. We also get our first chance to field some listener questions from Twitter and the site. Give it a listen and let us know what you think in the comments!
News From the Galactic Republic / Stories from the Outer Rim
Pre Comic-Con IGN Interview with Dallas Dickinson and Jake Neri
-Healing
-Raids and Group Class Members
-Companion Characters
Twitter Questions
-sirdesmond and bmartin717 were curious about group structure and whether or not tanks would be required.
-NpXDinO and Silv3r_Rav3n wanted to know about the graphics in SWTOR
P.S. Unfortunately we missed covering the new developer blog. This will definitely be discussed in the next episode!
With little news coming from the SWTOR site and Comic-Con, we break down some of the finer points of group play and the concept of companion characters in an MMO setting. We also get our first chance to field some listener questions from Twitter and the site. Give it a listen and let us know what you think in the comments!
News From the Galactic Republic / Stories from the Outer Rim
Pre Comic-Con IGN Interview with Dallas Dickinson and Jake Neri
-Healing
-Raids and Group Class Members
-Companion Characters
Twitter Questions
-sirdesmond and bmartin717 were curious about group structure and whether or not tanks would be required.
-NpXDinO and Silv3r_Rav3n wanted to know about the graphics in SWTOR
P.S. Unfortunately we missed covering the new developer blog. This will definitely be discussed in the next episode!
The folks over at Bioware have confirmed a number of times via the official site, interviews, and panels that companion characters are going to be a part of the game and have an influence on our experience in the world of The Old Republic. But from what I can tell, we don’t really know much about how these NPCs will actually change the game. They are said to have their own story and their own path down the light or dark side.
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| These guys are truly hideous. Are we going to pick our companion? |
Obviously, the dev team is going to draw heavily from their past experience with companion characters in games like KOTOR and Mass Effect. Those seemed to work pretty well, right? And they were integrated into the game in a way that didn’t detract from your story. Let’s just hope we don’t end up with the paper cut-outs like in Guild Wars.
Are you even remotely excited about companion characters in an MMO setting? Vote in the poll and leave us details in the comments!
[poll id="2"]
