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Language localization in SWTOR: the joke’s on you

April 3, 2011 by

On April 1st,  you obviously know what that means:  April Fools day.

Last year we got the Sarlacc Enforcer update –  this year we got an update over the localization of Star Wars: The Old Republic into Shyriiwook, the native tongue of the Wookies. This faux update includes three videos of the Shyriiwook version of SWTOR and a new HUD skin that is pretty much a fur ball. Other than this small April Fool’s joke no real content was posted to the site by Bioware, and as usual half the community took the joke and the other half are outraged that the release date wasn’t revealed.

No matter which side of this argument you’re on, be sure to check out the funny videos and HUD skin here on SWTOR’s official site.

I personally like these funny updates, the game will drop when Bioware and Lucas Arts decide it’s ready, so enjoy this update and may the Force be with you.

 

Filed Under: Humour, News Tagged With: ,

Bioware on Oceanic servers / guild hosting: we’re listening

April 2, 2011 by

One of the most regular points of contention for those looking to play SWTOR in the Oceanic region, is the lack of support to-date for the region – something we’ve discussed on the Flash Point podcast a couple of times. The guild hosting option recently announced only allows for selection of European and US time zones. Over at the SWTOR forums there’s a great discussion thread on Oceanic guilds, and Bioware’s David Bass has responded there on the issue:

For those that find the type too small:

I know we don’t talk about it much on the forums, but we are aware of the worries and concerns of our Oceanic community, and we take any feedback from the community very seriously, no matter how large or small. Of course, a lot of the decisions made fall on the business side of development, which means that there’s not much we can talk about or respond to at this time. We will pass your feedback on to the appropriate people, to ensure that your voice is being heard, but beyond that we can’t promise anything.

It’s a fairly safe statement to make: we understand there’s a concern but we can’t promise anything. That said, at least there’s an acknowledgement of the issue. It’s hard to envision anything substantial happening pre-launch given the guild hosting is well underway, but here’s hoping.

Filed Under: Community, News Tagged With: , ,

Jedi Armor progression unveiled

March 26, 2011 by

Today’s update is over Jedi armor progression and a community Q&A.  The Jedi Knight Progression video was pretty nice, not as epic as the Bounty Hunters, but still a good update. The video begins with a Jedi Knight in his padawan styled robes very reminiscent of Luke from A New Hope.  The second set of armor shown is darker in color and has a high collar with golden trim, the Jedi is shown wearing this when obtaining his first lightsaber. The next set shown is of the Jedi Guardian tree, a heavier styled green armor almost trooper like with a traditional Jedi robe on top, making the Jedi easily identified as the tanking advance class.

The second set of Guardian armor pushes the tank look even further with large armored shoulder pauldrons and a large armored collar. This set doesn’t have a robe, but a large black cape, the armor also has large armored bracers making it look very intimidating. This part of the video also shows the Guardian using a taunt debuff ability where he holds his saber above his head and a large blue blast of light bursts from the saber and swirls around the Guardian before dissipating.

The next set shown is a lower level Sentinel armor set, comparable in level obtained to the green Guardian armor. The first set of Sentinel armor shown is a very light looking short sleeved hooded robe. The lighter look to the Sentinel armor coupled with the duel sabers makes the Sentinel easy to distinguish from the tanking Jedi Guardian. The second set of armor in the Sentinel progression is one of the best looking armor shown for the Jedi so far, It’s very similar in style to the previous set shown but is a dark brown, and the hood is pulled up, giving the Jedi Sentinel an almost assassin like look. This part of the video also shows the Sentinel fighting a Sith Warrior, blocking the Sith’s blows with first his right handed saber then his left, a very cool animation. The Sentinel then uses some unknown ability that involves overcharging his sabers then launching a blue blast to damage the Sith from range.

The main thing I noticed in the armor progression video, besides the obvious distinction in advanced class in armor, was how much more the Guardian blocked ranged attacks than the Sentinel did. This shows that in choosing the Guardian your Jedi Knight will have more defensive oriented skills.

The community Q&A was part of last week’s update, but I kind of missed it because of all the PAX stuff I was searching through it got overlooked. The community Q&A is all about Flashpoints and Bioware answered a lot of questions – you can view all of them here, and I’ll just quote a few of the more interesting ones.

Q: How many hours of game time must players invest on average before their first Flashpoint is available to play with friends? – Fortunetek

A: You’ll encounter your first Flashpoint after your Origin World – how long you take to complete that is up to you, really. By this time, you’ll be familiar enough with your class to feel confident taking on content that requires a group.” – SWTOR

(My guess, from what I’ve read on the net is that it’ll probably take between five to eight hours to complete your origin world depending on your skill and how much exploring/side missions you do)

Q: How intricately will the boss fights in Flashpoints be scripted? A typical example would be nice. – Sungil

A: Bosses are scripted to match the fiction and the environments. They change phases and require players to think on their feet. Most of all they require coordination. An example off the top of my head is an Imperial officer who jumps behind cover and calls in a squad of soldiers with jetpacks. He then spends one stage of the fight sniping you and sending traps at you while his men arrive in waves.”-SWTOR

Q: How exactly will class roles inside Flashpoints work? Will it be like in WoW or similar systems with fix systems, in which only damage dealer can deal damage, in which only tanks can block and only healer can heal? – Sarnave

A: This is an area where we try to distinguish Flashpoints from dungeons. While boss fights often require traditional tank and healer roles, some sections of Flashpoints are paced in such a way that healers can switch into damage roles and tanks can get a bit more reckless.”-Swtor

These were just a few of the questions asked and answered in the community Q&A so be sure to check out the whole story on Star Wars: The Old Republic’s website.

May the force be with you.


 

Filed Under: Community, News Tagged With: ,

Taral V Flashpoint dissected

March 19, 2011 by

This week I want to look more closely at the Taral V walk through from Pax East. The video posted to the site starts with an introduction from Bioware’s director of production, Dallas Dickinson, the narrator of this update. A Jedi Master from the same unknown species as Yoda, named Master Oteg, is talking to four Republic players, one of each class.

Master Oteg starts with asking the heroes to keep an open mind as he enables all of them (even the non-force sensitives) to see a Force ghost, the Force ghost proceeds to tell the heroes of a great evil threatening the galaxy. Oteg tells the group that there is a prisoner in the maelstrom nebula that is key to the Republic’s war effort, but the only way to free him is with a navi-computer located on Taral V. The four Heroes accept this mission and leave for their captured Sith shuttle to sneak past the Sith’s warships guarding Taral V. When the team boards the shuttle the game jumps to a cut scene of the ship flying out of the hangar and into space, then the cinematic cuts to the ship landing on Taral V and the players exiting the stolen craft.

As soon as the players exit the shuttle they all cast their buffs and set out down a dirt path. At this point in the video we get to see some of the reactive environment effects, a lightning bolt strikes the ground in front of the group and sets the ground on fire, shortly after a small skirmish that takes place there, lightning strikes an imperial ship and it crashes into a not so distant guard tower that crumbles and falls to the ground.

The video also shows a “Bonus Mission” inside of the Taral V flashpoint where the group of Heroes must destroy a small Imperial research station. This side mission looks like it wasn’t much of a challenge, a small ambush then some free XP for blowing up the research station.

After completing the bonus mission the team faces constant action on its way to the next objective on Taral V, a mini-boss fight against two trained vine cats and their handler. The smuggler neutralizes one of the vine cats with a stun dart while the Consular puts the other in a stasis field, leaving the mini-boss handler alone to face the four heroes. The team make pretty quick work out of the handler but amidst the fighting the Trooper throws a sticky grenade on the handler that breaks one of the Vine cats out of its stun, but the Trooper does a great job of keeping aggro of both the mini-boss and the vine cat. After a short trek, destroying another research station, and an elite droid the team finds itself in its first real boss fight against Captain Shivanek and his pet ripper. The Trooper and smuggler team up against the Ripper which has much more health and is much more deadly than the Captain the two Jedi are engaging. The two Jedi kill the Captain, but this gives his already powerful pet Ripper a buff called enraged making it even more powerful.

This boss fight is much longer than the previous one, and the teams health actually gets noticeable chunks taken out. After defeating the Ripper the party is contacted by Master Oteg who tells them that before they can enter the compound they must disable it security systems. The video then cuts back to Dallas Dickinson telling us that the only way to experience Taral V and all the other flashpoints is to play the game, imagine that.

All together it’s  a great video full of combat and exciting action well worth the 16 minutes it take to watch.

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With:

Star Wars: The Old Republic release date – after July 2011

March 16, 2011 by

As reported by our friends at Darth Hater, a recent presentation by Electronic Arts CFO Eric Brown has nailed down a little more firmly the potential release date for SWTOR:

So we said it’s going to launch sometime in calendar, but not within Fiscal 11. So that basically pens down between you know, April 1st and December 31st of this calendar year. It’s also reasonable to infer that it’s not in our Q1 guidance. We gave Q1 Fiscal 11, Fiscal 12 non-GAAP revenue guidance, minus 39 minus 44 cents and I think it’s not unreasonable to infer that it’s not included in that 90 day period.

So that rules out a pre-July release date, which is no real surprise given how little of the beta process has been completed, something Brown alludes to further into the presentation:

You need months of different flavors of beta testing to making the product generally available. We’re really focused on providing a great user experience, because not only do we want to retain, kind of the core tier 1 users. We want word of mouth reference ability to bring in tiers 2, 3 and 4.

Given we’re only at closed beta so far, July is probably a pretty optimistic launch month as well. There’s the cohort of observers saying 2012 will be the year for SWTOR. I’m not that pessimistic but it seems a pre-Xmas launch may be about the best to hope for. I am of course very happy to be proven wrong.

Filed Under: News Tagged With:

Taral V walkthrough

March 13, 2011 by

The steady drip-feed of information coinciding with PAX East continues, this time with a 16-minute walkthrough of the Taral V Flashpoint. It covers pretty much anything and I’d argue it’s the most substantive gameplay demonstration to date. This is certainly a game that’s starting to look pretty polished and engaging. As mentioned on our podcast, we were hoping for some end-game content, and that may still be unveiled, but this is a great taster.

The introductory part of Taral V will be a must-skip after the first couple of times but it sets up the story nicely.

Anyway, have a look for yourself:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

PAX East – first trailer

March 12, 2011 by

Bioware has released it’s first PAX update with a new trailer, and also announced their “Pre-launch Guild Program.” The new trailer titled The Fate of the Galaxy (shown below) was released today for the Friday update. The trailer begins with some Jawas standing next to several droids on Tatooine, The screen fade out and Hoth appears showing some Tauntauns and Troopers in the wicked looking snow armor, there’s also a large four legged walker standing in the background in front of some shield generators like from Empire Strikes Back. The video then goes through a few more scenes before showing some combat and space combat featuring the D-5 Mantis. Unlike  Deceived and Hope this is not a cinematic trailer, it was made using in-game graphics and it does not disappoint.

If you’re watching closely there seems to be some armor on one of the Sith players or possible NPCs that looks identical to a Scout Trooper from Return of the Jedi but black – it looks sick. The video also showed off a Rancor and a Sith Warrior smacking a Jawa which was pretty funny, but the trailer isn’t that big of a release, so be expecting a better one soon. PAX is a big convention so no surprise that they didn’t put out a release date or a larger beta announcement in the first one or two days, but I have a feeling Bioware will release something really good at this convention.

The “Pre-Launch Guild Program” is a tool for guilds in Star Wars: The Old Republic located under the new Guilds section on the Community tab on SWTOR’s website. The Guild headquarters is used to create a guild before release and by filling out the information about your guild, like if it’s PvP, role playing oriented, Republic or Sith. The Guild HQ can then predetermine the server you will be placed in when the game releases to best fit your guilds wants and needs. The guild update also allows each guild created and registered on SWTOR to have it’s own mini website within the game’s official site including a lot of really cool stuff such as a public forum that anyone can view, A private forum for guild members, a Poll that shows your guilds Classes, and a roster so you can keep up with all it’s members. I really like this guild program Bioware has going – it should make things a lot smoother when the game launches.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , ,

Announcing: Flash Point podcast

March 7, 2011 by

I’m really pleased to be able to announce that we’re about to start our own podcast. We’ve decided to call it Flash Point, as we hope to ignite debate and conversation amongst the SWTOR community – and yes we know about Flashpoints in SWTOR so there’s an analogy there as well. It’ll be hosted by myself and Edward Wilson, with Alec Bailey hopefully joining us in subsequent episodes.

The podcast’s focus will be to provide around an hour of commentary on Star Wars: The Old Republic each fortnight or so, with community input key. Whether it’s questions you want answered, issues you want debated or an aural soapbox for you to vent, we’re extremely keen to hear from you. We think we can provide a different tack to the other great podcasts already out there, but the proof will be in the finished product. So if you’d like to ask a question / make a suggestion for Episode 1, then here’s how:

1. Ask a question via Twitter

2. Post something on our official podcast sub-forum

3. Use our contact form

It’s fair to say we’re a little excited by this. Episode 1 is being recorded this weekend and should be available by next Monday at the latest.

Filed Under: News Tagged With:

Bounty Hunter Update and PAX teasers

March 6, 2011 by

Bounty Hunters rejoice, your class update is here. The update includes a revamp of the Bounty Hunter page in the Holonet, a class video, details on the D5-Mantis, The Bounty Hunters ship, and a new race page on the Holonet covering the Rattataki.

The Holonet’s update for the Bounty Hunter includes new screen shots and new tabs such as “Known Associates”, “Specializations”, and “Starship”. Under the “Known Associates” tab you’ll find  Mako an orphaned splicer that grew up on the tough streets of Nar Shaddaa. By age eight, she had learned all known programing languages and was running with some of Nar Shaddaa’s more notorious splicer gangs. Seven years later, she was found wounded in an alley by an aging Bounty Hunter named Bradenn. He needed a tech specialist and she needed a way off Nar Shaddaa, Braden’s crew would become Mako’s first real family.

Under the “Specializations” tab there are two paths an aspiring Bounty Hunter can walk: Powertech or Mercenary. A Powertech is the Tank path for the Bounty Hunters utilizing heavy armor, advanced shielding, and the deadly flamethrower, They will be hard to take down for ranged or melee enemies. Concerning the Bounty Hunters damage dealing path, Mercenary, Bioware says:

If the best defense is a good offense, the Mercenary’s got the most intimidating defense in the galaxy. Heavily-modded blasters and deadly heat seeking missiles make the Mercenary a mobile heavy weapons platform. There is no problem extra firepower can’t solve, and no one who knows what he’s doing getting between a Mercenary and his target.

Personally I think the Mercenary has the coolest update of armor to date. It’s a sick combination between a WWI English soldier with a gas mask on and a space cowboy. As usual DarthHater, has a dissection of the class video that’s worth a look.

Under the “Starship” tab is the D5-Mantis, a modified Kuat Drive Yards D5-Mantis Patrol Craft , the Bounty Hunter’s ship, it holds a very close resemblance to the infamous Fett’s ship it was no doubt based off of, Slave I. The D5-Mantis’s page also has new screen shots and a new video to go along with the page.

“Born Killer, the pale skinned Rattataki are made for battle. Centuries of constant warfare have weeded out the weak, shaping the remainder into proud, passionate and deadly combatants,” says the Holonet on the Rattataki race. The inhabitants part of the Holonet received an update today with the Rattataki which includes some new screen shots and a lengthy bio of this race’s history on their home planet and their dealings with the evil Sith Empire.

Bioware also released some information about PAX on the official SWTOR forums:

Inside the main PAX East exhibition hall, visitors to Booth 912 will be among the first in the world to play the mid-game Republic Flashpoint, Taral V! Taking the role of a Trooper, Smuggler, Jedi Knight or Jedi Consular, you’ll team up with other players in an extended hands-on gameplay experience. This is a challenging mission which even MMO veterans may find difficult, but we will prepare everyone who plays with a tactical briefing at the booth.
Conquered Taral V? Experienced every Origin World? There’s still more. Throughout all three days of PAX East we’ll be giving presentations of Star Wars: The Old Republic from our booth stage, including live Q&A sessions with Developers from the BioWare Austin team. Ask James Ohlen (Lead Designer) and Daniel Erickson (Lead Writer), as well as other team members, your burning questions.If you can’t make the trip to Boston, never fear… we’ll be keeping you up to date from the show floor via our Community Forums, our Twitter feed and via our official Facebook page

So for those of us who can’t make it they confirmed they will keep us updated plus I’ll be on the look out for videos and other news to post on TOROZ to keep you guys up to date.

May the Force be with you

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: News

Game Tester feedback and waiting for PAX

February 27, 2011 by

This week’s update from Bioware is a Developer Blog from Blaine Christine, the Live Producer for Star Wars: The Old Republic. As he puts it: “I work with the development team to ensure that anything released to our fans (read – you!) meets the quality standards that are so important to any BioWare product. That means any time a new build of the game makes it into our Game Testing Program, I need to ensure that any content or features that we specifically want to have tested meet the designers’ needs and don’t contain any major bugs.” He also insures that the design team is getting the proper feedback from Game Testing (real players) to balance and build up the game itself.

Christine also confirms that Game Testing has begun. Blaine’s comment on testing so far is “We have received valuable and actionable feedback from the players that have participated thus far. Much of this feedback has already been incorporated into the game and we’re going to continue testing to validate the changes that have been made.” Rather than give actual bugs and fixes as examples Christine gave more info on what it’s like to play Star Wars: The Old Republic.

BioWare asked its Game Testers to give them some of their thoughts on the game – all Testers names have been changed to meet their NDA requirements) The first opinion I’ll post is from Game Tester JA:

“I’ve been waiting years and years and years for an MMORPG experience like this. The combat is incredible and never gets old. The grind is gone. I am so happy the grind is gone (so, so very happy). The stories are fantastic, well written, well acted, well animated, incredibly immersive, and the inclusion of choice takes it into territory that other MMOs have only dreamed of. Lastly, this game makes you feel like a bad***. The entire time. And I love that.”

Just one more because they’re almost all the same thing in different words – this one is from tester IV:

“This is the Jedi game to end all Jedi games. If you’re a gamer and you don’t throw your hands up in triumph when you get your first lightsaber, you’re not really alive. This game is, bar none, the best interactive Star Wars experience ever.”

Christine is also involved with SWTOR’s launch team, and insuring that BioWare’s customer service for the game will be far above standards. He also confirms that the closer to release they get the more Game Testers they will be needing, so keep your eyes on your emails.

Below the update post from Bioware as always is a long lists of posters from the SWTOR community. Over the last month, 80% of the posts are about how bad the updates have been. I would like to remind everyone that PAX is coming up very soon, so don’t be disappointed if the next couple Fan Friday updates are similar to what they’ve been because I’m sure that most of the stuff you want to know is gonna be released at PAX. Hopefully we get a release date and the Bounty Hunter update the community has been begging for.

Filed Under: News, Opinion Tagged With: ,

Sith Temple concepts and community Q&A

February 19, 2011 by

Bioware’s Concept Artist Diego Almazan takes us inside the process of creating the concept art for a Sith temple. Almazan Starts with a basic idea on the mood he wants to set for the temple. “I wanted to keep in mind that this temple is as much an ancient prison for the dead as it is a tomb or necropolis. It’s dark, eerie, and foreboding, so I started with some basic shapes and colors that work in those ideas.“

Almazan goes into how he uses large shapes and organic details to further create the mood he wishes to bring to the temple. Diego’s task is more than just designing a temple or building; his design goes straight to the level creation team where they take them and turn them into reality. Almazan then adds details and a color change to the Sith temple to simplify the transition from design to creation. Diego says, “Up to this point the material had been a bit ambiguous, so I proceeded to add chips, cracks and discoloration to show how the stone has aged over time. I made the sculpture at the top a bit more faceted to push the stone look, while the pattern on the overhang was changed to be more decorative. The pillars add a nice aggressive touch, and function as a lock for tombs that should not be opened.” Diego Almazan then adds spider webs, both old and new, to show age and that critters still lurk the halls of this Sith temple. He adds yet another color change to bring back more of that dark feeling in his final cut of the concept art for the dark and ominous Sith temple.

This Friday Bioware also releases it’s monthly Q&A, questions from fans answered by executive producer of Star Wars: The Old Republic and Vice President of production, Bioware Austin, Rich Vogel. (It’s fair to say the response from the community, as evidenced by the comments on the Q&A, was rather lukewarm – Ed).

The first question asked is will force users be overpowered in comparison to non-force using classes. Bioware answers that whether your playing Warzones or Flashpoints, “there will be good reasons to play every class – it’s our intent that no one feels punished for playing the class they love. “ says Rich Vogel.

The next question asked concerns the treatment of the Consular, “Will Consulars be pigeonholed into one role? “ asked by Brian. Rich Vogel answers by bringing up the multiple roles each class can take and reassures the community that the role your hero takes will be that of your choosing.

Community member Benjamin asks ”How friendly will this game be for solo players in the endgame? “ Vogel replies that there will be plenty to do for soloers, even if they do not wish to participate in Flashpoints or Guilds, Bioware wants every play style to have plenty to do at endgame. Another question asks if player choices will affect faction alignment, Vogel says “At this time, we don’t plan on allowing characters to change faction as part of the class story. One of the main reasons for this is that it would interfere with your class story’s continuity.” Kes, a member of the SWTOR community, asks what range of hardware SWTOR will run on. Rich says “It’s important to us that The Old Republic can look great and run well on a wide variety of hardware configurations. To that effect, we’ve done as much as we can to create a compelling, detailed world that can scale easily based on your hardware’s abilities.”

The last question is one that I have been curious about myself and was asked by community member Philip “Is there a jump button?” Vogel replies “Absolutely! If you can’t jump, that takes away a lot of the “realism” of exploration.” For the full Story and the Fan Friday update, which included new concept art, smilies, and forum avatars, go here

Filed Under: Community, News Tagged With: ,

The Fansite debate: aftermath

February 15, 2011 by

Just a quick follow-up post after a very interesting few days debate on my take on the fansite issue. The main platform for debate has been a thread on the official forums, MMO Champion, and Game Banshee. Darth Hater has a small thread as well.

Summarising debate across a range of forums is always risky, but from my biased standpoint, opinions seem to fall into two broad camps:

1. Those who see the fansite agreement as being too prescriptive, with a focus of angst being the advertising ban. This includes those who didn’t read the intricacies of the argument and assumed things were worse than what they are.

2. Those who see it as a storm in a tea-cup / overreaction / rightful stance by Bioware. This includes those who felt Bioware should be left to do their thing as they see fit. There was even one person who was angry the issue was raised as it was taking Bioware’s community team away from valuable time working with the community.

So overall? The split to me seemed 70% concerned about the issue, 30% not fazed / in favour of Bioware’s agreement. As I said though, I’m biased and would love your thoughts in the comments. I think a debate on the issue is overall a positive thing.

What’s interested me the most about it all, is the near silence from the fansite community. TOR Wars and SWTOR-UK have mentioned it, but that’s about it.

It could be that most sites don’t have an issue with it. Or it could be that no-one wants to speak out for fear of repercussions. I don’t believe the latter scenario is one to be concerned about i.e. as far as I can tell, Bioware don’t mind dissent. They rightfully want to minimise it, but to date they’ve allowed the debate on their forums, and I can confirm no horse heads have appeared on my pillow. So if you’re a fansite that has a concern, then now would be the time to flag it prior to game release. The larger sites or smaller ones like these that take a journalistic bent, have some clarity i.e. we are treated as press sites. I’m not so convinced that clarity is there at a wider level.

As Spectus says on the SWTOR forums:

Rather than close off all such loopholes individually on a case-by-case basis, BW/LA simply takes a broad approach, and forbids fansites from generating ANY income from ANY source.

Is that wise? Maybe; maybe not. But that’s why executives get paid the big bucks — to make such decisions.

If you’re impacted by that broad approach, then perhaps you might like to speak up.

And for the cynics, here’s how much ad revenue I generated in the big bump in traffic over the past few days as the debate unfolded:

Maybe we should have signed the agreement after all 😉

Again – would love your comments / thoughts.

Filed Under: News, Opinion Tagged With:
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