Darth Hater just released a video they shot at the SWTOR booth at Pax East where a demonstration of the Space Combat feature was held live. Presentation was hosted by Daniel Erickson and Stephen Reid and the footage is amazing in all of its Full HD glory. The video shows awesome footage of the space map and then shows us space combat inside an asteroid field. Darth Hater is working on one of their famous dissections of the video and you can find it here.

The Old Republic’s community has been in a frenzy of activity in the past 12 hours. First leaked information about the space combat has emerged from various sources. First, German fansite got a hold of an issue of PC Action magazine (a German publication) that provided details on space combat. Our friends at Ask a Jedi had the details on this as well as the translation of the most important information in the German article.

A heated discussion ensued on the official forums. All of the space combat discussions are being consolidated by Bioware moderators into one monstrous thread with a poll that asks you “Are you happy with the Space Combat details?” (Yes/No/Need more info).

The biggest news is certainly the appearance of the scans from the upcoming PC Gamer magazine. When space combat was announced it was said that PC Gamer will have the exclusive details on the feature and this is the article that details it. There is a page missing but you can find all the most important info without trouble. The scans were found at Darth Hater’s forums

Here’s the recap of the most important info:

• Space combat is a tunnel shooter mini game (your ship is propelled along a predefined path and always moving forward while you only choose which weapons to fire and at what targets – there is no free flight like in X-Wing vs Tie Fighter)
• There will be 6 different ship types for 8 classes (Jedi Consular and Jedi Knight share the same ship type and so do the Inquisitor and Sith Warrior)
• Space combat is a single player instance (at launch at least)!
• You can collide with asteroids or other ships
• There will be a main quest that will give a token reward you can exchange for items and side quests that will rotate and feature escort missions of different ships or destroy a randomly chosen ship
• Each mission is 2-8 minutes long
• Blasters and missiles only (and only power of these can be upgraded as you earn rewards)
• Character abilities and stats do not affect space combat

That’s it folks. Two to eight minute missions with you moving your ship on X and Y axis while mouse targeting and shooting your enemies. A little action packed mini-game to break the mold. I bet all those that said space combat will resemble KOTOR’s turret mini game are doing their: “I told you so”.

My hunch is that there will be a video of the space combat missions running at GamesCom and since we will be attending we will be bringing you all of the news right from the spot.

Click the image for full size

Following yesterday’s announcement of the existence of space battles in The Old republic the whole community is very excited and is eagerly awaiting more details on the feature. What we know for sure is that PC Gamer magazine will have an exclusive insider look at the feature in their August 17th issue. Above you can see what the cover will look like. We’re scouring the net for more information and we’re eagerly awaiting the rumored video from G4TV.

Thanks to this thread on the official forums we became aware of the video below. Apparently, the engine Bioware is using to create SWTOR is capable of producing space combat experiences. The video below is a demonstration of such capabilities by a small developer studio using the same “Hero” engine to create their own Space combat MMO. Whether Space combat in SWTOR will resemble the video below in any way is completely speculative and I must warn against making any conclusions based on the footage you are about to see. I just think this is an interesting find and wanted to share it with you.

The long awaited panel “Beyond Solo” at this year’s Comic Con convention held in San Diego has finally happened and boy, what a newsworthy event it was. Thanks to our fansite compadres at Darth Hater and Ask a Jedi we were able to read the news as they happened. Here’s a recapitulation of the most important thing we have learned during the panel.

• Ship customization and space combat
• Space combat is an alternative gameplay experience to the primary game of storytelling, questing, and ground-based combat.
• You fly your personal ship to various “hot spots” on your galaxy map (Speculation: no free roam space flight exists but rather “instanced” hot spots)
• In these hot spots you will blast your way through asteroid fields, enemy fighters, frigates, destroyers, and a variety of other obstacles that will evoke memories of some of the great Star Wars™ space battles
• The story arcs are both worldly and galactic. (You will have quests arcs specific to a single planet and more global, galactic, story arcs)
• You can not switch factions.
• World quests, “flashpoints” (?) and story arcs are included
• You can customize your companions with gear similar to Mass Effect
• Only one companion can join you on missions.
• Your player name is in your companion’s nameplate
• Each class story as big as original KoTOR, and no one shares content! (that is 8 KOTOR games right there)
• Mandalorians play a large part in the game.
• Some alien race restrictions when picking classes
• Progression will be very important and can be achieved through tons of gear and crafting, etc. (you will need to “work” for these rewards)
• You will be able to determine the build of a character based on visual style (Jedi consular with double bladed lightsaber is DPS while single bladed consular is healer)

We expect videos and images to pour in from the event and we’ll update this post accordingly. There is also a Dev meet later on today and we expect more tidbits from there, but I am guessing not as big as the space combat reveal.

There is a live blog of the SWTOR Comic Con panel in progress at Darth Hater. The first thing mentioned from the panel is this:

1:03PM PST – James Ohlen: You can customize your ship and engage in space combat. October PC Gamer will reveal more details.

You can follow the updates on Darth Hater as they happen at this location.

Also worth mentioning is that world quests, flashpoints, and story arcs included. We’ll update this post as more information becomes available.

UPDATE: Ask a Jedi is also following the panel live and you can read their impressions here.
Sean Dahlberg just confirmed Space combat on the official forums.

UPDATE 2: Mos Eisley Radio reports:

Space combat is going to be “an alternative gameplay experience to the primary game of storytelling, questing, and ground-based combat” …
We’ll be using our personal ships to “blast through asteroid fields, enemy fighters, frigates, destroyers, and a variety of other obstacles”

UPDATE 3: Alex Freed: Can customize companion via equipment similar to Mass Effect; one companion out at a time, and your player name is in your companion’s nameplate.
Each class story as big as original KoTOR, and no one shares content! (from Ask a Jedi)

UPDATE 4:
(from Darth Hater live blog)

• If you are interested in Mandalorians, they play a large part in the game.
• Not every class can play every race.

(from Ask a Jedi)

• Another Question about progression, they view it extremely important and there will be a lot of it. Specifically mentions crafting in that vein
• Ironically, nothing more about the multiplayer story other than mentioning there is one 🙁

The panel has apparently ended and we’ll be bringing order to this post and getting all the impressions from the attendees of the panel for you to read.