We found this video among the media SWTORCrafter shot at E3. I’ve posted it a while back on our YouTube channel and I think it is about time I put it up on the site as well. There is some nice footage here of the new UI as well as companion specific UI. There are some nice enough shots of the sexy droid companion Scorpio to be found in the video. I’ve replaced the show floor noise with some original tracks from Knights of the Old Republic. People have been complaining about all the music and trailers that were heard in the background of previous E3 videos. I hope you find this a much better solution.
Published by Mikro under E3,video on Jun. 20. 2011.
It has been two weeks since E3 finished and still there is footage that deserves to be shown or talked about. That is what makes the Electronic Entertainment Expo so epic. Where else would you be able to come across a Space Marine from Warhammer 40000 universe and Boba Fett (and some storm troopers) taking photos together and than initiating what looks like might become the most epic fight since Obi Van and Boba had their little altercation. Watch the video for yourselves and let me know what you think happened next!
Published by Mikro under E3,video on Jun. 13. 2011.
Razer, maker of various gear for gamers, has presented at this year’s E3 a special set of peripherals they made in association with Bioware and LucasArts that are all themed in The Old Republic fashion. To celebrate this announcement Razer has been running a giveaway on their site for a few days now. The giveaway is called “Choose your allegiance” and lets people choose Republic or Empire and put in their details to be eligible to win some of Razer’s products. The faction that has more members will also have an additional cache of prizes handed out to lucky winners. Today is the last day to enter this giveaway so feel free to hop over to Razer’s site and try your luck.
SWTOR Life also has a special treat for all of you wanting to find out more about the Razer gear that will come out simultaneously with The Old Republic. We were at Razer’s booth during E3 and we managed to shoot some in detail video of the peripherals as well as talk to mr. Hilmar Hahn and Melonie McElhannon about the products. We got to hear about some cool features and the way they are working together with Bioware and LucasArts to present in-game information on the keyboard. I am rather tantalized by that multitouch pad they have there. Seems like part of the game could be moved there.
If this was any other convention other than E3 I would be kind of pleased with what we got from the show.
But this is not just another convention, this is E3 the biggest and most anticipated show of the year.
Even though nothing was promised we expected a banquet of information. What we got started well yet fizzled out like cheap champagne once the cork was removed.
Hopes have been dashed, our banquet was reduced to a $10 meal. Everything started well true enough, per-show reveals as a good starter. The main meal of almost 1 hour of in-game footage (even lack lustre questions did not ruin it completely) then as we were set for the finest of desserts we were left wanting for 2 more days.
These days were filled with mere leftovers and regurgitated food that we had just digested.
For everyone at E3 they see things differently. It’s amazing how hands on time sways you in favour of TOR. I wish everyone could have at least 1 hour to play along, as this would settle many people’s concerns.
But 99.99%+ of the followers have not even come close to sitting down and playing the game.
We had three major reveals and one major trailer released from the Old Republic headquarters during this year’s E3.There were a bunch of interviews by the major media outlets, yet most of the information heard there was already known to the people that follow this game for years now. I tend to look at the fan site interviews and gameplay impressions to get the really interesting information and new reveals.
When the first cinematic trailer “Deceived” came out everyone’s minds were blown away. None expected the second trailer “Hope”, because by that time we all knew the game was still some ways off and spending even more money on a super cool trailer would seem unexpected. We all knew that there was going to be a third trailer and since it lacked that element of surprise of the first two it had to be the best in the bunch. What followed was 6 minutes of epic Star Wars cinema and “Return” made all the fans squee like little girls at a Justin Bieber concert.
The very first big piece of info came out through a Gamespot live show with Daniel Erickson where Daniel showed what is the last quest in a chain of 10 group quests on Alderaan. This is the fight with Bouris Ulgo, self proclaimed king of Alderaan himself. The interesting thing about this footage is this is not a flashpoint. It is group content that is not like your regular instance. It is just something existing in the world that you can only do with a group. This is fun because it is still a big boss fight, but not as extensive as a flashpoint. I wonder if it is repeatable? UPDATE: Lethality of askajedi.com explained to us that during his talk with Daniel he found out that this is not repeatable and it is a cinematic ending to a long quest chain, yet, you do get your own “phase” or “instance” to do the quest in so others wouldn’t mob steal your boss. Beside what looked like a fun storyline and an OK event we learned that there are item sets (the trooper had what seemed to b e a 7 piece epic gear set) that have bonuses for more pieces you wear. We also see that there are low level epics, because one of the pieces in the set was level 13.
What followed was for me the best display of SWTOR at E3. It was a live feed on EA.com with Daniel Erickson playing Tatooine and answering viewers’ questions live. For the first time we saw a Jawa companion called Blizz, which made a lot of people squee until they learned that only Bounty Hunters can have those. We also saw vehicles, a small quest line on Tatooine and just in general some fighting and questing on one of the planets. Turns out Tatooine is really huge, because Daniel spent a better part of the demo just flying on his speeder from one place to another and still, when looking at the big planet map, you could see that he traveled only a portion of the planet’s whole surface. We learned that there is a lot of PvP happening in the Dune sea and it was just fun watching the game being played for a whole hour.
The last major reveal was showing for the first time any information about raids (or operations as they are called in TOR) in a form of a teaser trailer. Not much more has been said about raids other than what we see in the trailer. We know that the operation’s name is Eternity Vault. It is located on the planet Belsavis (a prison planet) and the story behind it is that an evil ruler of the universe from 10.000 years ago is locked in that Vault, which is opened by accident. We know for sure that there are 8 player raids and that these represent the “easy mode” versions. There are going to be larger raids than this, and people have been counting the number of players in the trailer until their eyes started to bleed in order to determine exactly what is the number of players we can expect to see in a raid. The current tally is 16, but this is all subject to change through game testing.
To learn even more information about the game in its current state you should visit all the fansites that reported from the event. I’ll give you a rundown of the articles I found the most informative.
Darth Hater did a list of general things learned that sums up a lot of small things from the game they saw while playing or watching others play
Published by Mikro under E3,video on Jun. 09. 2011.
Here’s an officially released video of gameplay on Tatooine. This is similar to what we saw Daniel Erickson and Stephen Reid play during the live stream event on the first day of E3. You can enjoy it in full HD beauty bellow or even download it from the official site.
Published by Mikro under E3,humor on Jun. 09. 2011.
We all know Bioware has some of the smartest and funniest people in the industry. They were smart to put some of them up in front of cameras, because only that way we get things like this:
To prove our point further here are some more images from this year’s E3 featuring Daniel Erickson in additional interesting situations.
Torwars.com has created the most awesome picture gallery in the history of humorous E3 posts ever. Make sure you check out their Bioware Booth Babes of E3 2011, guest starring Daniel Erickson:
Best for last. Two Tor Gamers (And Some Microphones) is a podcast by members of the Beskar guild with a female and a male host. Blueneko , the female host, has been saying for a few weeks now how she’s gonna go to E3 and rub Daniel Erickson’s head. So, she went to E3 and rubbed DE’s head. Pictures as proof:
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.
Due to a family emergency our coverage of E3 2011 will have to be cut short. We will try and update the site with the most important news. Our prayers go to the Green family.
SWTOR got nominated by the following companies as best of E3 or most anticipated of E3: Gamespot, multiplayer.it, GamePro and PcGamer. You can check out these nominations in our gallery of exclusive Wednesday images from the show floor
In the same gamespot.com live camera interview with Daniel Erickson it is said that there probably won’t be a Free For All Open Beta, but more of a “Closed Open Beta” (this is my interpretation)
Gamespot.com has a guy running around E3 recording everything he sees with his live camera. This is being streamed live at this link. He stopped by the SWTOR booth today and the exclusive piece of information I heard from it was that yes, there are certain worlds where Sith and the Republic will be able to talk to each other (in this build at least). This is not 100% confirmed, and you can check the 40:00 minute mark for this reveal. UPDATE: Daniel Erickson later on said this is still undecided and if it turns out griefing is a problem they will turn it off.
After an exhausting first day of E3 we are back for some more punishment today in order to bring you all the latest from the show floor of 2011 E3. SWTORCrafter will also be getting some hands on time with the game today and there is also a meet&greet scheduled for later in the evening and we’ll try and get you as much information from those events as we can.
Published by Mikro under E3,video on Jun. 08. 2011.
The trailer that was shown during yesterday;s Gametrailers.com live chat with Gabe Amatangelo is now released on its own in full HD quality on EA’s Youtube chanell. You can view it bellow (thanks to Godtiergaming for the find).
