This week I am going to bring a relatively new thread on the forums out to everyone. I am doing this because it is covering a subject that has to be on everyone’s mind, that is crazy about Swtor right now. The subject is E3 and maybe, just maybe, the off chance that some type of announcement regarding the status of the game, insight into the beta testing or just brand spanking new information on game-play might come out of this venue.

 

So, first the link. If you notice, this thread is started by GamewizX. If you frequent the forums a lot, especially around big events you notice this person generally has a thread like this up and ready to gather all the information they can for everyone to read. Gwiz (GeeWiz) does a lot more than that as they tend to offer some sound advice, mostly, about other subjects that float around the forums. I tend to like this thread, even though there isn’t any E3 information out yet, because it’s something I will be able to keep going to as soon as E3 starts and be able to get a lot of information on when I am ready.

 

Twitter is good for instant news flashes, but if you aren’t able to read anything at that moment, you have to read though all your tweeters that you follow to search for the information. Having a thread like this makes it simple to go back and go through all the information that comes out at your leisure. I appreciate the time and effort put into getting a thread like this started and the effort that will be needed to keep it updated.

 

So when E3 comes along and you need a place to sit down and go through all the glorious Swtor news that comes out, look to this post for that thread. I am sure there will be some type of game information that you will love to read up on listed there.

Tags: Forum Friday

Electronic Entertainment Expo holds a special place in hearts of all Star Wars: The Old Republic fans. It is the convention where both “Deceived” and “Hope” cinematic trailers were first shared with the world. It is the place where we first saw in-game footage of the Bounty hunter and the smuggler. Black Talon instance, back than known as kill the captain/save the captain scenario, was showcased for the first time at E3 2009 as well. Republic multiplayer demo was also played out by members of the Bioware team showing us what group content looks like in SWTOR. All things considered, it is a great place for The Old Republic fans, and gaming enthusiasts in general, to be at.
 
E3 is the world’s largest gathering of all people involved with the gaming industry and we are happy to report that SWTOR Life will be represented by its co-owner and Editor Derek Green aka SWTORCrafter. We will be live blogging from the show floor, doing interviews with the developers and getting you all the latest news. This being the year when we expect the game to be released, we can imagine there will be a lot of information coming from the show floor. We can speculate all we want about what exactly we can hope to hear, but to be honest, I believe everything to be possible at this point. We might get a flood of information and yet again we might find that devs stayed in Austin to work hard on finishing the game. Whatever the case is, we are happy to report on as much as we can for the SWTOR community. Stay tuned because the show starts on June 7^th and that is less than a month away.
 
Make sure you follow @SWTORCrafter or @SWTORLife on Twitter for live udates once the show starts.
 

Tags: e32011, Electronic Entertainment Expo

Gamespot got an exclusive chance to release a Sith Inquisitor Class trailer before anyone else. We presume this video will be part of a Friday update this or next week when we will be able to download it in full res on the official site. Until then, you can watch it down bellow:

 

Tags: class, trailer

A few minutes ago Star Wars The Old Republic reached another milestone. The number of like the official page on Facebook has reached 300000 likes. As a reward, a new screenshot of a Sith Inquisitor readying his double bladed light saber for battle has been released. For a game not even yet released, not bad to have so many likes.
 

Click for full size (1600x900)

 
While we’re on a subject of facebook and SWTOR screenshots … Each wednesday there’s a screenshot released on the official SWTOR Facebook page and this week’s screenshot features a secret Imperial base.

Click for full size (1600x900)

Tags: facebook, screenshot

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. 🙂

Continue Reading »

From the interview that me and Serge had with Damion Schubert and the Developer Q&A we attended with him, I got wind of something that has my ears perked for sure.  The mention or hinting at a new mechanic on the horizon for crew skills in SWTOR.

I was hit by the realization of what I think I understand them to be planning immediately.  In the Q&A with Damion Schubert when the first question of the session was asked to him, he replied with a response that included this little gem about a mystery “research system”

Continue Reading »

Tags: bioware, companions, crafting, crew skills, Damion Schubert, Fan Site Summit, interview, Q&A, star wars, star wars the old republic mmo, swtor, video

Probably one of the more talked about subjects in regards to playing Swtor has been what it takes to actually play Swtor. Right now, no one really knows. There has been discussions covering the topic though. So far the only real input we have on this is what was said before, which is:

Although no official system requirements have been released for STAR WARS: The Old Republic, one of the most popular topics relating to the game is discussion of system requirements. To keep all these discussions consolidated, we have created this thread to speculate and discuss possible The Old Republic system requirements on Windows PC.

While no official requirements have been published, this E3 2009 interview with BioWare’s Gordon Walton gives some insight into the basic level of system requirements that BioWare is aiming for:

Quote:

Gordon Walton: We are definitely not intending it to be extremely high.   Gophn.com: That’s great. I would like to be able to play it on my 3 year old gaming notebook. Gordon Walton: It’s going to more modest to let more people into the game because not every gamer changes out their machine for super hardcore machines.

Also, to clarify:

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeanDahlberg Star Wars: The Old Republic is currently being developed for the personal computer (PC) using the Microsoft® Windows® operating system. While we recognize that there are other operating systems and platforms available for games today, our development is specific to the personal computer using the Windows operating system at this time.

Please use this thread to speculate on the requirements, discuss whether your Windows personal computer will be able to handle the game, and other topics directly related to TOR’s system requirements.

As always, any discussion or responses found within is pure speculation; please do not take any requirement suggestions as official unless they come from BioWare themselves.

 

So it looks like Swtor may be pretty forgiving in what it takes to play the game. It seems that if you have a system that can currently run Warcraft, then you should be fine in regards to running this once it releases. Nobody has a clue what settings (low, mid, high) that might run the game, but hey, for now you are actually playing it aren’t you?

 

So in regards to this, I’d like to present something that even a novice Gamer Geek or budding PC Builder wannabe can use to upgrade on their current system, if they are really think they need one. The PC Gamer 2011 PC Builder’s Bible

With this handy magazine, building a new system (what I am doing) or even looking for upgrades to your current system become a little easier to manage with what information they give you. Add in places like Newegg and Fry’s, and you may find some of these items cheaper than is what suggested in the magazine.

 

With a little work, you shouldn’t even have to worry about IF you can play the game, as now you KNOW you can, and even possibly, run it at it’s most glorious setting of FULL so that you can enjoy every mouth-watering pixel coming at you full force on your face.

 

Tags: Forum Friday

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

Tags: crowd control, defend, Fan Site Summit, guard

Facebook image #11

Yesterday was Star Wars day (May the Fourth be with you…) and beside the Blue Ray version of all Star Wars films being announced we had a lot of TOR related news. European version of game testing has been announced. Conference call between EA financial management and the investors has been held and SWTOR was mentioned. This also produced an official release window for the game to be moved to the second half of 2011.
Click here to read about these news items in more detail

Tags: facebook, game testing, investors, release

During the first Fan Site Summit Bioware organized for members of the Fan Sites that write about their upcoming MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, we had a chance to sit down for 2 days and play the game. These are impressions from our hands on experience and they are divided into the following segments:

1. Combat
2. Story
3. Exploration
4. General

You should also check out Swtorcrafter’s Bounty Hunter and General Gameplay Impressions for another view of the hands on experience.
 
DISCLAIMER: Everything discussed here is subject to change. The version of the game we played was not even the latest build that was about to hit the beta servers around the time we visited Austin. Please, take all of the things said here with a grain of salt. Through testing and player feedback things drastically change.
 
I will be covering exploration in The Old Republic in this part of my Imperial Agent hands on series of articles. Why exploration? It has become a lost art of MMO design. As developers moved towards creating more accessible games in order to reach the widest audience possible they chose to hold the players’ hand every step of the way and take them down a predefined path. This made exploration a moot point since there was nothing outside that laid out path. Massive Multiplayer games are, however, a perfect setting for exploration. With its massive lands that take hours to walk across you should be able to find things that none else saw before. Little gems of lore and land that game designers left for those inquisitive types of players. Does Bioware provide something like that in The Old Republic?
Click here to read more about my exploring adventures with the Imperial Agent

Tags: event, exploration, exploring, Fan Site Summit, gameplay, hands on, imperial agent, map