Ah springtime, when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of… number crunching?

Gabe Amatangelo, SWTOR’s Lead PvP Designer and purveyor of mirth, stopped by the forums today mostly to quash the fun we might have otherwise had PvP’ing in the buff, but also to shed some rough insight into how Bolster may work in practice.

Those who dreamed of fighting bravely in their skivvies may want to take a few deep breaths before continuing… Continue Reading »

Ever since I returned from the Fan Site Summit in Austin I’ve spent little time in Rift. This was the game that I chose to tide me over until SWTOR release. As effective of last night my sub with Rift ended. With almost 2 months until it runs out I’m not really going to play much, and atm it’s lucky if I can muster up 1 hour play over a full day. This is from someone who played no less than 6 hours + per-day every day to almost nothing.

It’s not like I have not tried to rekindle the joy of playing the game but after getting around 8 hours on TOR, Rift is now so lackluster I cant seem to get that buzz I once used to feel.

Now with TOR I was ready as always to roll out on a PvP server. Just like every other game. With PvP being quite high on my list of things that keep me playing, and you can only really get that good PvP fix on a PvP server.,

Now, I’m a little puzzled to what server to roll out on with the news that PvE servers will have PvP zones that will auto flag anyone that enters at will.

This article will be for those like me that now find themselves pondering which type of server to go play. I hope reading back through when I’m done helps me to decide also. 🙂

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On day 2 of the Fan Site Summit in Austin a PvP presentation was scheduled. Unfortunately, Derek and me had to leave early to catch our flights back home so we missed most of the action. We did attend the Q&A with Gabe Amatangelo, but never got to actually participate in PvP. I’ll lay out the most important stuff we heard at the Q&A and link to coverage from other sites that were present and got to fight it out.

• You will be able to cast Crowd Control abilities on an enemy character only a set amount of times before they become immune to CC. There is a thing called resolve bar, that will be visible below each character’s HP bar, that fills up each time a CC ability lands on that character. When the resolve bar is full – character is immune.
• Score in PvP battlegrounds is divided among several categories: Healing done, Damage done and Defending done. Defending is related to the ammount of damage tank characters absorb on behalf of their allies this is done through the “Guard” ability every tank character has
• Guard ability lets you select an ally and cast this ability on him. This will “link” their health to the tank’s and 50% of all damage the “guarded” character receives is damaging the tank instead.
• There will be special PvP zones that once you enter you are automatically flagged for PvP. Even on PvE serves!
• As reward from PvP You get Valor points which are an alternative leveling system that lets you purchase PvP rewards once you reach certain Valor level. These rewards will not be too powerful when compared to PvE gear of similar class; 10-20% at most. This is more of a way of providing players with means to distinguish themselves as PvP players to the general population.
• Once the battleground is over you can actually vote for (commend) one player you think contributed the most. Person that was elected the most useful will get more rewards.
• Players that go on special streaks (like kill 10 enemies in a row without dying) get “badges” and their achievement is announced to everyone in the battleground so you know who is doing well/to avoid.
• Another battleground was revealed and it is called the Voidstar. The objective of this battleground is for one team to attack the enemy’s base objective by objective until they captured them all. At the end teams switch sides and the match continues.

Click here to see all the Fansite coverage we collected so far

All of us have played single player games at some point, and in games produced by BioWare, we all know how choice matters to your overall playing experience.

This is all well and good in that single player game, but how does this effect us in the MMO space. Not having to think past the end boss in these games, is something we’ll be very weary of in the MMO world. After this end boss (1-max in an mmo), some will say, that the real game begins.

Lets say that you know a little about TOR, and that you have not just clicked on a random page on the interwebs. You will all know that SWTOR will have story driving it forward. This is the major difference along with the Voice Over (VO) that sets TOR above all those other games out there.

Now, I am not going to suggest that story is a bad thing, and I’ll say right now, that “I, MrWarlock, do say that TOR will be the best playing experience from start to max level” and you can quote me on that.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

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.