This week I’m back from my hiatus with some more news. This week it;s ‘post-writing polish’, the excitement Star Wars: The Old Republic stirred up at E3, as well as a Fan Friday Update.

SWTOR writer Ian Ryan walks us through the process that the writers use after the actual dialog and story are finished. The main thing the writers are doing is going through and actually playing the game making sure that the environment and landscapes match the story.

As writers, we know the stories and the worlds they play out in. Armed with that knowledge, we set out to provide feedback on each planet’s art as it relates to story. While other teams continue working hard to finish The Old Republic, the writers log in to play the game. A tough life, but someone has to do it.

– Ian Ryan

The two main examples Ryan uses in his update for SWTOR is that of “The Promenade” on Nar Shaddaa and “Blastfield Shipyards” Coronet City.

If Nar Shaddaa is the Hutt version of 1970s Las Vegas, the Promenade represents the grand extravagance of the Vegas Strip. The first incarnation of the Promenade was impressive but subtle, a far cry from the glitzy and exorbitant tastes of the Hutts.

Nar Shaddaa’s  Promenade was originally almost a skeleton on of what it became after the writers did there art pass and had the designers kick it up a few notches.

After the designers ran through and revamped the Promenade it looks the part of a Hutt’s Vegas strip. Blastfield was originally created as a downtown block of office buildings, though  the writing team had envisioned full scale ships being built they never actually said that to the designers. After the art pass on this Corellian shipyard the designers completely rehashed the original area into the full scale shipyard the writers had pictured.

One of the things that I got from Ian Ryan’s article was that he said the games writing is now finished, and that there is NO less than 17 planets. These two off remarks kinda lead towards the game being close to completion, and that there is probably a couple of planets we haven’t seen yet!

Star Wars: The Old Republic hit Big at E3 this year winning a slew of awards and lining up fans for hours and hours just to get a glimpse of this power house MMO. Nominated for 20 awards and winning 15 of those twenty is a pretty great outcome for E3 anyway you look at it. Winning several “Best MMO” and “Best Trailer” the developers, Designers and Writers should be proud of their creation. Here’s the list of awards from E3

Electric Playground – Best of E3 2011

• GamePro – Best MMO
• GameSpy – MMO Game of Show
• Machinima – Best PC Game
• Massively – Best MMO of E3 2011
• Massively – Best Trailer of E3 2011
• Meristation – Best MMO
• Meristation – Best Trailer
• MMOCrunch – Most Anticipated MMO
• MMORPG – Most Anticipated MMO of E3 2011
• MSNBC – Best Multiplayer
• MSNBC – Best Sound Design
• MSNBC – Best Trailer
• PC Gamer – Most Valuable Game
• VGChartz – Best Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game

The Fan Friday added new Forum Icons and showed off some of the communities art work. Check it out here on SWTOR’s website.

The writer update and the E3 review are also worth a look, Hopefully we get a release date later this month. I know everyone is excited for SWTOR but, we don’t want a broken game!

May the Force be with you!