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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: ,

Okay, who is ready for school?

February 26, 2011 by

I was just finishing my mid-term exams when I had a thought. Is there school in Star Wars? Then I remembered that yes, in A New Hope, Luke wanted to go to the Academy. But what about the first, what was it, nineteen years of his life? Was he home schooled? Was he taught in a classroom somewhere like Anchorhead? Did he have a tutor? What kind of school would Luke Skywalker have gone to? Or did he?

At first thought, it is a no brainer. He had to have gotten some kind of education. Maybe it was all in moisture farming, but, no – that doesn’t work either, since he is a pilot and apparently a good enough one even in the wilds of Tattooine that his friend Biggs comments on it when they meet again right before the Death Star attack: “Luke is the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim, sir.” Contrary to popular belief you usually cannot do what Anakin did in The Phantom Menace – crawl into a starfighter with no training at all and fly it like a professional. Admittedly, what he did was autopilot mostly and/or was incredibly lucky / the Force. So… maybe with the Force, you don’t have to study to be a pilot? That doesn’t work very well, does it? I sure wouldn’t want someone piloting anything I am in who didn’t study to be a pilot.

So some more on piloting issues.Surely it involves stuff like mathematics, history, sciences, stellar geography, astromechanics, navigation, plumbing or electronics? ‘How to fix broken stuff without the proper parts’ might be course in Tattooine schools, or it might not have been. Some of that could be taught by tutors, or as an apprentice of sorts. That is another question: how much of any of that list of subjects did Luke know? Admittedly, he was in hiding, unbeknownst to him. The Skywalker name was fairly distinctive. If word had gotten to the upper echelons of the Empire that there was a kid with the Force who had that name, would that have been a good thing? I don’t think so. So the whole reason that Owen kept denying Luke the chance to go study at the Academy was to keep the boy out of the sight, or try to anyway. Not that it worked in the end. So how well educated was Luke in A New Hope?

He obviously knew one end of a blaster from the other, he knew how to fix droids, and he knew how to fly. Beyond that? Who knows. My personal feeling is that he was not uneducated. This is a ‘gut’ feeling from watching the films so many times. He was reasonably well educated for someone who grew up in the back of beyond. Kind of like a young man growing up in the Western United States during the latter part of the nineteenth century. That is, he probably sat in a classroom with a bunch of other people his age for part of a day, several days a week, from the time he was five or so. The rest of the time, he was working with his uncle, keeping the moisture farm going, not an easy task. Maybe the teacher was a stern, possibly handicapped former farmer who couldn’t work, but found a place doing something he either enjoyed or despised. Not a nun, not on Tattooine. After all, his brain was still in his skull, right? So no B’omarr involved. Good thing too, ick.

Higher education is covered well in the movies, with the Imperial Academy mentioned a few times but no one covers any lower education. Maybe it is simply too commonplace to be seen in normal conversations. But to be a reasonably functional member of society an education is pretty important. If you make it a high tech society, like Star Wars is set in, well it is kind of important.

In the end, we don’t really know what Luke Skywalker had for an early education. He learned a lot ‘on the job’, as it were, with his uncle. But for actual education, classroom type education, we have no idea. If so, it was likely a small classroom, maybe the kids of the area in some kind of place set up by the Darklighters. Maybe in Anchorhead. Or maybe he was just so skilled in the Force that the things that us lesser beings need education for, he could do naturally.

What do you think? Can you see Luke Skywalker as a kid in a classroom?

Filed Under: Community, 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:

The Fansite Conundrum

February 12, 2011 by

This story is a difficult one to write, as it has some significant implications for this site more broadly, but it needs to be written. It’s a lengthy story but one well worth reading if you’re interested in the relationship between the media, MMO game developers and those who blog / tweet / discuss those games on forums.

The boundary between ‘media’ and ‘blogs’ has been blurred, if not removed, for years now. This site is essentially a blog, but its founder, and writer of this article, is a freelance writer / journalist of more than ten years standing. Over the past 18 months, Bioware have certainly fed information out to those interested on a regular basis, albeit with an unsurprising bias toward the US market. Over that time the word ‘fansite’ has sprung up repeatedly, used as a catch-all term for any site devoted to covering SWTOR. It’s fair to say I’ve struggled in a big way with the term ‘fansite’, as I for one am not sure I’m a fan of SWTOR – my job is to make that call when it’s released and report both the positive and negative aspects of the game and any wider issues surrounding it. Sure, I’m excited about its release and yes, we have writers even more excited about it – but to categorise broadly our discussions as those of a ‘fansite’ isn’t valid.

It’s in that context that I was a little surprised at an email I received from David Bass, Bioware’s Senior Community Coordinator.

Let me reproduce it in full, as sent to an unknown number of ‘fansites’ – essentially anyone that’s downloaded the fansite kit:

Details of email to fansites removed at request of Bioware

This agreement does contain a bunch of reasonable stuff around intellectual property, trademarks and hate speech etc. There’s no argument there and Bioware, LucasArts and EA absolutely have the right to protect their commercial interests at that level. What has surprised me with the email is the assertion that those who don’t sign the agreement will receive no official promotion from Bioware. They of course don’t have to promote anyone, but what they’re saying here is that even if you write the most glowing review of SWTOR in existence, if that review is on a site with advertising, then it won’t be linked to.

It also ignores the fact that most mainstream gaming sites are commercial interests, so I’m assuming Bioware will not be officially promoting IGN’s review of SWTOR, or a Wired Magazine feature on any impact SWTOR will have on MMO gaming culture. If such promotion does occur, then the so-called ‘fansites’ cop a double-whammy from Bioware. First. they have to agree to not make any money from their site and second, their larger competitors get a free run. Yes, I understand that for most ‘fansites’, trying to take on the big players is not the focus. It certainly isn’t for this site, but it’s probably safe to say most sites want as many people to read their work as possible. A percentage of those may like to at least cover their costs, or like yours truly, raise enough revenue to pay more writers and/or increase the very modest pay of the current writers. That’s my gripe – and the basis for me today shooting some questions off to David Bass at Bioware, with a very prompt response:

TOROZ: Are you requiring mainstream sites such as IGN, Wired etc etc to sign the agreement? If not, why do smaller sites with a journalist on staff such as mine, need to sign an agreement preventing running a game- specific site as a commercial concern? Put another way, aren’t you preventing competition by restraining small sites that rely on word of mouth when compared to the mainstream sites.

David Bass: There’s a big difference between press and fansites. Fansites are those who cover SW:TOR exclusively, as TOROZ does. IGN and Wired are press, and therefore they have a completely different process (and have to go through EA and Lucas in order to get anything). The benefit of being a fansite is that you get a direct line to BioWare (i.e. Me).

TOROZ: Given the requirement of signing the agreement in order for Bioware to link to a story, what mechanisms will be in place to ensure fairness in promotion i.e. isn’t there an inherent risk that sites critical of the game will receive minimal coverage officially anyway and those sites who unquestionably repost Bioware info get all the traffic?

David Bass: There are no “mechanisms” in place to ensure fairness; everyone’s entitled to his/her own opinion, of course. Clearly we’re not going to link to an article that’s four pages of non-stop bashing of SW:TOR. But if an article is detailed, well-written, and fair, there’s no reason why we couldn’t promote it.

TOROZ: Will sites who sign the agreement have preferred access to new information from Bioware i.e. different embargo times, earlier briefings etc?

David Bass: No.

__________

So there you have it. For what it’s worth, it seems I’ve already signed this agreement because I downloaded the Fansite kit. That said, TOROZ definitely doesn’t meet the benchmark for compliance given we run advertising (to pay our writers and cover costs). Therefore, we’ll have to work that little harder to keep up with those who are compliant as we’re not guaranteed the same degree of responsiveness from Bioware. That may not always be a bad thing.

Over to you: do you think Bioware’s fansite terms are reasonable? I’m particularly interested to hear from the already burgeoning SWTOR fansite community, a proportion of which run advertising. What will you be doing in regards to the agreement?

UPDATE: After some robust discussions with the ever-responsive David Bass, I can vouch that there’s a real willingness to look at these issues and in the case of TOROZ we’ve chosen to take the route of being classified as ‘media’. Every site is different obviously. The response overall to the story so far has been mixed, with around half of people saying we should have just negotiated to take the media route initially and that we obviously weren’t careful enough in reading the Fansite Kit terms. The other half agree with our stance and that sometimes the boundaries between the media and consumer aren’t as clear anymore. Either way, these are issues that are best sorted prior to launch so that the ground rules for coverage are clear. In our case, Bioware have now provided that clarity.

Filed Under: News, Opinion Tagged With: ,

Building Flashpoints and EA’s quarterly results

February 7, 2011 by

This week, Jesse Sky, world designer for The Old Republic walks us through the art of building, designing, and combat in Flashpoints from Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Bioware’s team of writers must work very closely with the world design team to get through the painstaking process involved with creating a Flashpoint in The Old Republic. Starting with an idea, the writers then go through a gruelling process of peer reviews and rewrites until they have a solid and entertaining story for the flashpoint. This is where Jesse Sky’s team come in. The world design team then starts on a dry erase board tossing up ideas about how the feel of the Flashpoint progression should be, moving the player’s party from spacious outdoor or large indoor scenery to tight claustrophobic hallways and caves.

Sky says “Once we’ve decided on the structure of the mission, we start building. At this point, we become concerned with your visual experience. It would be a shame if the whole mission took place in a series of identical hallways, right? We strive for a lot of visual diversity in the environments. For example, the Taral V Flashpoint takes you through a jungle, an exterior outpost, and then deep into an Imperial research facility.”

Another focus of the world design team will be the combat in the Flashpoints, bosses and mini bosses seem to be plentiful in these story-driven instances. “The real challenge of building a Flashpoint is balancing momentum with storytelling,” says Sky, who also talks about not just having endless amounts of  “Yard Trash” enemies standing around waiting to be slain in the middle of your path to bosses and loot but to have a compelling reason to keep pushing against enemies. “The combat experience in Flashpoints can differ radically from combat in the open world. We aim to tightly integrate the story with the types of enemies the Flashpoint calls for, their AI behavior and their abilities, creating unique scenarios seen nowhere else in the game,” say lead combat designer for The Old Republic, Georg Zoeller, who Sky brought in to elaborate on combat design in the Flashpoints.

Zoeller says “Flashpoints also feature some of the toughest combat challenges in the game. Flashpoints in The Old Republic will require a full group of players to succeed.” Zoeller goes on to talk about how a full team of players won’t be enough to get you through these epic instances due to the difficulty of the enemies and the coordinated teamwork it will require to conquer these intelligent and deadly foes.

What sets Star Wars: The Old Republic’s Flashpoints from a standard “Instance” or “Dungeon” in other MMO’s is the immersion and character development involved with these difficult trials. Sky points out that you shouldn’t feel like a part of a loot machine, instead like the Republic Hero or Sith Champion you are. It’s also been said that Flashpoints will have a play through time of 90 to 120 minutes for a party complete from beginning to loot-rewarding end.

Be sure to check out the full article here.

EA held its quarterly meeting on February 2nd and talked about costs, subscription quotas, and release date time frames. EA CEO John Riccitiello denounced the rumor of $300 million in development and production costs of The Old Republic. Riccitiello says that with 500,000 subscribers at launch the game would be substantially profitable, and anything north of 1 million would be very profitable for EA. EA CFO Eric Brown says the game will drop in 2011 but after EA’s fourth quarter of 2011, which ends March 31st, so we’re looking at April 1st through December 31st.  I personally think The Old Republic will drop on the 34th anniversary of A New Hope, May 25th.

You can get more info here at GameSpy.

Filed Under: News Tagged With:

Flashpoints review and release date rumours

February 5, 2011 by

This week’s article reviews Star Wars: The Old Republic’s Friday update of last week on the new Flashpoints, story-driven instances that require a party to undertake the mission. They are much more difficult than your average solo quest, but will produce greater loot and rewards. Bioware released a new video for the Taral V Flashpoint along with a new Flashpoint page addition for the game systems area of it’s website.

Taral V is a mid game Republic only Flashpoint where teams must recover a navigational computer on the planet. The navigational computer will allow the Republic to navigate the dangerous Maelstrom nebula where the Emperor’s space station sized prison is holding a Jedi who is critical to the war effort.

The new game systems page also lists several other Flashpoints. The Esseles and The Black Talon are both early game Flashpoints, Esseles being Republic and Black Talon being Imperial. Republic players will be defending the Esseles from Imperials, as the Imperial players will be assualting the Black Talon to regain control from a rouge captain. They will both have important choices for the player character’s story to be made at the conclusion. Mid game Flashpoints will be Taral V for the Republic and Boarding Party for the Empire. In Boarding Party the team of Imperial players must track down and capture an escaped high-level Republic prisoner and prevent a bold attack on the Empire. Directive 7 is an end game Flashpoint for both the Republic and Imperial factions. In this Flashpoint, insubordinate droids have created a technology that could bode destruction for both the Republic and the Empire. Both factions are sent to a remote moon to quell the droid rebellion before it is too late. All the info and details on the flaspoints can be found here on SWTOR’s game systems page.

More rumored than news, The Old Republic will not be released in the spring of 2011, but in the fall. Specifically September, while Bioware is maintaing that it will be released in the spring. The gaming industry website MCV says “Devlopment sources” from SWTOR have told them it will be September before the game drops. A September release will put TOR into the social life ending period of fall 2011 which is already heavily stacked with games from the industries biggest players. Bioware will most likely denounce or confirm this rumor at Pax East in March. Fans may get the info sooner, when EA’s Q3 FY 2011 shareholder meeting is held. This is where they will release their quarterly schedule of major titles.


Filed Under: News Tagged With:

Introducing: Alec Bailey

February 5, 2011 by

It’s with great pleasure I introduce TOROZ’s third regular writer, Alec Bailey. From Oklahama in the USA, Alec will be primarily doing news reports. Here’s a snaphot of Alec:

Alec has been a gamer for more than 16 years starting with a NES and a Gameboy. Being a huge RPG fan, which most likely comes from his first real addiction: Pokemon, Red version. Alec has played every game Bioware, Obsidian, and Bethesda have made and beat Mass Effect, Mass effect 2, and Dragon Age at least 10 times. He also enjoys gunning down helpless noobs at FPS games such as Black Ops and Killzone.

Alec has been a Star Wars fan since the first time he saw A New Hope at the age of 8. He has played almost every single Star Wars game and read a modest amount of the EU (mostly comics). He is also proud to be a geek and loves everything that comes with being one, such as the endless amount of useless knowledge he has obtained.

Alec has also played nearly every MMO from EQ to FFXIV but, is proud to say that out of all the MMOs he’s been addicted to, World of Warcraft was not one of them. Alec’s play style is usually main or off tanking. He loves helping out new players with quests and helping them get a grip on the game. He will be rolling a Trooper Vanguard as well as a Jedi Guardian.

Alec is a self proclaimed Playstation fanboy. Any like-minded individuals are invited to send their Playstation friend invite to Emo_Slayer. Alec is enrolling in college in February. He is majoring in Game Design.

Again, a big welcome. Alec’s first story on flashpoints will be up later today.

Filed Under: News Tagged With:

What do we really want?

January 30, 2011 by

THIS!

We want more exotic dancers in Star Wars The Old Republic! Uh… maybe?*sigh*

So many people have so many different ideas about what the game will be. We are getting a lot more information now, some of it dribbled out to us on a weekly basis and some gleaned from interviews that we find with staff members. And most of it looks very cool. But what are we looking for in a Star Wars Old Republic MMO? I mean besides seeing a young Carrie Fisher in a metal bikini again? There are a gazillion things that we want, but…seriously.

Well first of all, we want a cool story. Just a thought, but I think they have that covered. No matter what anyone may think of Bioware, they do tend to have cool stories. The twists that they throw at the players are legendary at times. I mean, how many people knew who the primary character was in Knights of the Old Republic before it was exposed? Yes, they seem to have a have a pattern they follow, but it works for them.  The bottom line, as always is simple. People buy the games and enjoy the games, so they must be doing something right. Even people who hated MDK, Mass Effect and Jade Empire had to admit that the stories were well done for the most part. For many games, story has always taken a backseat. After all, what kind of story was in Asteroids, or Donkey Kong? Now players want more. We want cool stories with intriguing characters, plot twists that take us completely by surprise, and a sense of completion at the end of the game. We don’t want ‘Oh, we have to wait for the sequel to find out what happens. Grr.’.

Second, we want action, but there are stipulations. The days of mashing the shoot button down and running through a video game are over. We want to feel heroic or evil depending on our preference. One problem with today’s games is that action seems to have become the single most dominant factor. Games that were stealth based, such as Splinter Cell, are now about how fast you can kill people. In MMOs, action was almost always there, but it could be hard to find. You had to walk all over the place to find those blasted gnolls/orcs/undead/demons/whatever, to kill them to finish the quest. Once you found them, you had the chance to fight, but you had to find them first. Now most games seem to be going the way of Call of Duty or Medal of Honor. Shoot now, shoot later, shoot some more and then try and find the mission objective after you blew up the building it was in. Oops, it was a hostage. Oh well, they deserved to die for being a hostage. That seems to be the mindset of many games these days. Maybe it is just my own perspective, but that is what I see.

Star Wars video games have always had action – The Empire Strikes back for SNES. Star Wars: Battlefront 1 and 2 in particular were fun. And yes, you had to shoot fast and straight to survive. It didn’t help a lot when you got hit by the blast from a Walker, but it was fun. And that is the final thing we want. We want fun. The problem is, everyone has a different definition of fun. My definition of fun is sitting in a hole a long way from the battlefield and shooting bad guys in the head from long range. Boom! Headshot! Evil, yes, but fun for me. Other people want to get into vehicles and shoot big guns and crush their opponents under treads, mechanical feet, whatever. Yet others want to run into a melee with knives/swords, whatever and duke it out mano a mano. For each type of player out there, there is a different definition of fun.

So, for Star Wars The Old Republic we want story, action and fun. And we want it all with the feel of Star Wars. Star Wars Galaxies pre CU, may it rest in peace, (Yes, I know it still has active servers but it is dead to me. Let SOE rot in the deepest level of Hades!) had that feel. You were there, when the bugs/glitches and sheer stupidity of the SOE execs did not ruin it. Not every Star Wars game that has come out has been able to do that. Most of them have had the characters, the ships, or something right. But few of the games managed to get everything right. The original Dark Forces did a great job in delivering what we wanted. Bioware delivered with Knights of the Old Republic.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I am very optimistic about this game. MMOs are designed to cater to many different kinds of players. I will be able to play a ranged combat specialist. Others can charge into battle with lightsabers and the Force. I cannot help but expect cool stories from Bioware, given their track record.  Just seeing the in game footage that we have seen so far, the action looks amazing and very ‘Star Wars-y’. The ability to take on multiple bad (or good) guys at once is very, very cool. And as for fun? Big guns and the ability to use them! What more could I ask?

Is there anything specific you would want in the game? (Keep it family friendly please…)

Picture one of many at http://www.supershadow.com/pictures/princess_leia_gold_bikini.html

Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With:
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