Comic-Con, Class intros, and  Community Q&A are all on the menu for this week’s update. Comic-Con kicks off Wednesday July 20^th for a three hour preview night, then on Thursday the real fun begins.

 At 3:30PM on Thursday, July 21st our panel for Star Wars: The Old Republic will be held inside room #6BCF

– Bioware

Bioware will also be taking over the Hilton Gaslamp Quarter Hotel, having plenty of hands on with SWTOR and also holding a Q&A session. Bioware will be holding hands on sessions on four different days, Thursday through Saturday 12:00pm to 7:00pm. On Sunday they shut it down at 5:30.

Senior Video Editor Bryan Arndt takes us through this week’s studio insider on creating the class intro videos. The design team sat down and watched all six intros to the Star Wars saga, analyzing every second. After reviewing all six they decided to go with Empire Strikes Back as the template for the crawl in the intro videos. Arndt says the hardest part was getting the angle of the crawl right, among the complexities of the crawl dealing with exacting the color of text to the speed and margin used. After the crawl was designed they started work on the cinematic aspects of each class and go into detail about the Sith Warrior and Republic Smuggler. The Sith’s intro is a simplistic styled view very reminiscent of the movies with a larger destroyer cruising into the top of the screen. As the Destroyer comes into view a lone shuttle descends from the destroyer and blasts towards Korriban.

The Smuggler”s intro is much more intricate, involving the Smuggler breaking through a Sith blockade around Ord Mantell to get supplies to the Republics troops. The intro has the Smuggler pulling off fancy maneuvers while out-flying a Sith fighter, very cool cinematic start for the Smuggler.

As usual the Q&A is just too long for me to cover all of it so be sure to read the entire Article here on SWTOR’s official site. Here’s a taste:

Q: Will the NPCs have monologues or dialogues with each other that players can hear while walking nearby? – mmZero

A: Yes, they will. As in other BioWare games, ambient conversation is a part of the world and will help the player tune into the general goings-on of his or her surrounding area. Companions will sometimes voice their thoughts and opinions as well, as you travel the different worlds in The Old Republic.

I really enjoyed this in… well, every Bioware game, especially Dragon Age and Mass Effect. It really adds to the immersion and lore of the game – glad to see it made the cut.

Q: How many voice actors voiced this game? – DigitalMaster

A: We are working with a very large number of voice actors… possibly more than any other game made so far. Recent counts put the number at over nine hundred actors across all three languages, and that number is still growing.

Over 900…. Wow.

Q: Does The Old Republic use any of Ben Burrt’s original sound effects from the films? – MorgonKara

A: We’re definitely tapping into some of Ben Burtt’s classic material and integrating it into the game in different ways, sometimes as a layering approach and sometimes processing it to make something new. You’ll definitely hear some of his original material from the films too (it wouldn’t be Star Wars without it)!

Q: What percentage of the in-game music is original for The Old Republic and what percentage has already been used elsewhere (movies, other games, etc.)? – Nahte

A: We’ve written a huge amount of original music for the game. There are over six hours of original score that have been produced specifically for The Old Republic, plus an additional hour and a half of brand new cantina music. In addition to the original score, you’ll also hear the scores for both Knights of the Old Republic I and Knights of the Old Republic II. Lastly, the game just wouldn’t be complete without John Williams’ material from the Star Wars films.

Now these two questions are hand in hand for me. John Williams makes Star Wars what it is, his music drives the emotions that run so deep in the films. The lesser known Ben Burrt had just as much impact on the movies – his sounds are so iconic that SWTOR would be missing out on not using/sampling from them.

Alec “Dekin” Bailey signing out. For the Republic!