Today we receive a rather nice and lengthy post by Emmanuel Lusinchi which details all the changes regarding the item modification system. Throughout the course of the explanation we learn how over the course of the beta the Bioware team has changed the system, a lot of it undergoing drastic updates.
These changes are based upon the feedback and through the use of the modification system throughout the beta. To sum it up, it's been made simpler and easier to manage, while at the same time retaining all the benefits it had originally begun with.
Things to note are:
- Color Coded Gear: Orange (Fully Modifiable), Blue (Rare), Purple (Epic), & Green (Common)
- Orange Gear can be obtained around level 8 through class quests, space quests and social gear
- Modifications are removable
- Modifications can be done anywhere (a workbench is no longer required)
- Looted / Quest Modifications can now be reverse engineered
- 4 standardized slots
Based on a recent quote from Steven Reid, we are given some clarification as to what Early Game Access entails. As most of us maybe used to, when you pre-order a game, typically you'll be able to login and play a few days early.
Bioware is taking a slightly different approach, while yes all of the pre-orders will be able to login early, it's being based upon a first come first serve strategy. This many seem a bit frustrating to some folks, but don't worry. We are given a clarification as to why in the following quote.
While we understand all of you want to be in Early Game Access on Day One, part of the point of a head start program like this one is to allow us to gradually ramp up the population of our servers so that on launch day, the general play experience is as pleasant as possible. While we're going to be allowing a lot of people into Early Game Access at regular intervals, we cannot allow everyone who pre-orders in at once. That would defeat the point of a gradual head start.What does this exactly entail? Glad you asked! By gradually letting in an influx of players, we'll be given less server side issues hopefully and with that a smoother first day experience. I'm sure we can all recount a few mmorpg's in the past where day one, was riddled with bugs. Let's hope that this strategy works and we'll have a grand experience in a galaxy far, far away!
The next obvious question is "I pre-ordered on Day X, when do I get access?" While we cannot answer that for everyone, I will say (as I did in July) that those who pre-ordered early will be getting Early Game Access, well, earliest. At this point we still have pre-orders available and therefore, anyone who pre-orders will still gain Early Game Access, but as they're redeeming their code later, they'll get Early Game Access later. As I've said before the difference between 'early' and 'later' should be a matter of days, not weeks
Source:swtor.com
Today Bioware pulls back the curtain and we are presented with an official release date for Star Wars: The Old Republic. It's been a long few years and the hype extremely high for this major mmorpg. Finally now we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The launch date is set for December 20, 2011. We also learn of the pricing structure and model in which it's subscription based. The pricing is fairly standard for the industry with a $14.99/mo subscription and discounts for larger time segements.
Source: swtor.com
Today during SDCC, the cover for Drew Karpyshyn's upcoming book, Revan was revealed. This is the third book set within The Old Republic. The story follows in the footsteps of Revan and the events transpiring towards the end of Knights of the Old Republic
We are curious to hear what your thoughts on the new cover are, let us know!
Source: StarWars.com
Today we are shown a new instance or to be more specific "operation" by Bioware. operations in Star Wars: The Old Republic will essentially be raids, in which multiple groups will join together to be challenged in some of what is the galaxies most difficult and cooperative content.
A brief description of the Eternity Vault goes as follows:
A terrible threat has been uncovered on the ice world of Belsavis; a danger so grave that it could make the conflict between the Republic and the Empire irrelevant. Groups of heroes must band together to venture into the ancient and deadly Eternity Vault . . .
In addition we are given a great video of the Eternity Vault and some of the challenges that lie within it. We'd like to know what you think of this first operation. Who lies waiting at the end? We've got a few idea's, so make sure to listen to this week's show to find out more!
Source: Star Wars: The Old Republic
The first day of E3 is well on it's way. We've managed to learn a few tidbits regarding Star Wars: The Old Republic. So without further ado lets get into it.
To start things off EA is rolling out a new service titled Origin, through this service you'll be able to find exclusive videos and merge your EA account into it. This service will provide a EA store, access to news, a download manager and more. What do we think about it?
Today's business environment is competitive and consumers want to spend their hard earned money and get the most out of it. In this regard by EA using a service comparable to Steam, they achieve a higher profit margin and reduce any fee's as occurred by other distributors of their content, in addition they also provide a platform of convenience allowing them to consolidate multiple services.
Next we are presented with a new section of the Star Wars: The Old Republic website titled: "Game Setting" which contains the three cinematic trailers in chronological order, including brief descriptions. This is a nice archive and as the franchise is based so strongly upon it's story, we certainly appreciate it and it's organizational component.
Lastly a new cinematic trailer was revealed today, showcasing another glimpse of the setting of The Old Republic.
During the first day of E3, we were pleasantly treated with a brand new delicious cinematic trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic. In this lengthy trailer, which spans well over 6 minutes, we are given some spectacular cinematography and visuals as we get an introspective look of the Republic surrounding Korriban and the events unfolding thereafter.
For over a thousand years, the Sith were thought to be extinct after a grave defeat in an ancient war. But a select few survived, fleeing to unknown regions to escape Republic forces. In the centuries since, the Sith have prepared; rebuilding their Empire for the day they would make their return to reclaim what was once theirs and take their revenge on the Republic.
That day has arrived.
If you haven't seen the new cinematic yet, then what are you waiting for, you can view it here. Let us know what you think!
Bioware has revealed a new part of it's plan for Star Wars the Old Republic. We all expected guilds to be a part of TOR, and were hopeful there would be some website tools to help us do this, but Bioware went the extra mile and created a system for creating and managing guilds pre-launch.
Each guild leader creates their guild on the website and chooses between an RP, PVE (normal) and PVP server type. When the game launches, it appears you will not be able to chose your server's name and will instead be placed on a server based upon your guild-leader's decisions. It also appears that guilds which are created on the website first will have the first shot at obtaining their ideal guild name. Once a guild's name, such as Bane or Vengence, has been selected too many times, you will be forbidden from creating a guild with that name. 
All of this guild creation and guild joining is just phase 1. Guilds will also be able to select allies and enemies during phase 2 of this process. At this time, it appears the ally/enemy selection is mainly so that other guilds you have contact with will start on the same server.
Finally, in phase 3 the guilds will be loaded into the game. They will only be loaded into the game pre-luanch if there are four members who have pre-ordered the game via an official pre-order site (there are no official pre-orders yet). Additionally, the guild-leader must load the guild into the game in phase 3 to prove the guild is still active and deserving of their guild-name reservation.
This evening some interesting information sprouted up, as we are all have heard from the beloved Yoda, "Always in Motion is the Future" This certainly seems to be the case with Star Wars: The Old Republic launch date. Although we can say we aren't quite surprised, but it is still unfortunate to hear.
The new launch date is expected to be in the 2012 fiscal year. We certainly hope it will be sooner, but these delays happen quite often in mmorpgs. The typical run cycle for most major titles to meet launch requirements at the very least involved various testing phases including public ones. As of now we haven't seen a public test yet and the year is quickly approaching an end.
We understand this news maybe disappointing, but lets try to put a positive spin on it and be glad that with the extra development time we will see a more polished product that we can all enjoy. After all we don't want any retcons!
Source: Gamasutra
Today is a sad day. legendary director Irvin Kershner passes away at the age of 87. He is responsible for directing Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, one of the most beloved movies in the saga. Let's take a moment and remember the great stories & visions he brought to us in a galaxy far, far away.
Empire was a revolution at the time of release as it is very nontraditional to portray a story in whom the villains win. Throughout the film we are treated with very iconic one liners and characters such as:
Leia, "I love You"
Han, "I know"
Yoda, "Do or Do Not, There is No Try"
Vader, "Luke I Am Your Father"
We also are introduced to the great Jedi Master Yoda, the caves of Dagobah, the battle of Hoth and to one of the greatest swindlers in the Galaxy - Lando Calrissian, these are among the many great moments we are treated to in the 5th installment of Star Wars.I'm sure there is no need to say, but he now goes off to a greater place and joins the Force. Farewell friend, you will be missed.
You can read more about Irvin Kershner at starwars.com or on his imdb page for a list of films he was involved in.
Chronic Reload had an interview with Daniel Erickson at the EA Winter Showcase about missions and crafting, where some more details and precisions were laid out. Check out the thread for quotes and a link to the interview on the official forums. Here are some of the highlights from the interview:
Gathering and Crafting
- Further indications that it's your companions, not you as a player, who are doing all the actual gathering and crafting.
- There are Mission Skills that come automatically with Gathering Skills.
- When finding resources while out in the field, you can remotely assign companions on your ship to gather them.
- There's a cost and a time for sending your companions on missions.
- Missions run from being 5 minutes to 24 hours in length.
- Diplomacy missions are for getting Dark Side or Light Side points.
- All companions have bonuses for different Crew Skills (e.g. Treasure Hunting).
- Sending a companion to do Treasure Hunting is a kind of dice roll which depends on how much time is invested.
- Treasure Hunting mission "dice rolls" also have crits, bringing you higher quality loot occasionally.
An interesting development occurred today, Electronic Arts has gained the publishing rights to Star Wars: The Old Republic from LucasArts. It will be handling the distribution and marketing of this titanic title. I want to iterate that this is not 100% confirmed yet, but what does this mean to the rest of us if it does indeed prove to be true?
First of all this would entail EA to have more control over the upcoming mmorpg. They will be responsible for the majority of the direction they wish to advertise and market the game towards. Having gained more control would also give them less hoops to jump through. To bring this to a conclusion, this doesn't completely put LucasArts out of the picture as they will still be involved in the collaboration process. So yes, in short any continuity issues will go through Leeland Chee.
Let us know what your thoughts are of this recent news and your predictions on how this may impact SW:TOR.
Update:
There's been an official update from Electronic Arts regarding the new Global Publishing Agreement.
Source: dailygame.net , electronic arts
Bioware has updated their Twitter and Facebook pages for TOR to indicate an impending big announcement. Their twitter page says only, "We’re in Europe where we’ll be announcing new details about The Old Republic™. Stay tuned!"
The timing of the post seems to indicate a possible Thursday press release with a recap of the information on Friday on the swtor.com website.
Fans on the forums are currently speculating that the announcement could be anything from crafting to a new phase of testing, but Bioware hasn't given so much as a hint as to the nature of the announcement. It is the opinion of this humble podcaster that we'll see a demonstration of how morality can change your appearance, but that is naught but a guess. We'll have to wait to find out.
Lets face it, EA is a huge company. Bioware has a lot of people too. From time to time, we have learned information about TOR from disgruntled employees. In fact, that's how we first heard that Bioware was working on "The Old Republic". Well we seem to have a new disgruntled EA employee who's dishing out the information.
Going by the name "EALouse", an anonymous writer claims to have worked in the art department for Mythic under EA. He discovered that he was going to lose his job in November so he wrote his article about how EA killed Warhammer Online. His article is a long, detailed rant about specific employees of EA and what he dislikes about them.
It's far too specific to be dismissed as a hoax or a fake article, so I'm going to take this one seriously. He doesn't work on TOR, and doesn't know much about it, but he does know it's cost. Here's what he wrote:
To put that in perspective, WOW is estimated to have cost some number over $100 million for upkeep and development up to this point, but nowhere near $300 million. The idea that Bioware has spent three times that number, and done so before any upkeep costs is mind boggling.And Bioware? Don’t make me laugh. They’ve spent more money making the Old Republic than James Cameron spent on Avatar. Shit you not. More than $ 300 million! Can you believe that?
And you know what they’re most proud of? This is the kicker. They are most proud of the sound. No seriously. Something like a 20Gig installation, and most of it is voiceover work. That’s the best they have. The rest of the game is a joke. EA knows it and so does George Lucas,they’re panicking , and so most of Mythic has already been cannibalized to work in Austin on it because they can’t keep pushing back launch.
Old Republic will be one of the greatest failures in the history of MMOs from EA. Probably at the level of the Sims Online. We all know it too ……
The majority of the linked article is about problems with Warhammer, and EALouse has gone on to admit in a later article that he knows very little about it TOR, and very few people in his department have beta keys. His real beef is with those in charge of Warhammer and Mythic.
Today's update from Star Wars: The Old Republic gave us a nice introspective on what the advanced class system entails. It also brought up several curiosities that need to be mentioned.
The first of these is the obvious which is the shared skill set, this is a 'talent' tree that both classes have in common, which seems to point towards manipulating secondary attributes of your chosen profession, in this case our example was the smuggler. The specifics we are given from the smuggler entail increased energy generation while in 'cover' and an increased critical chance.
Lastly there is a certain bit of text that leads to quite a bit of speculation:
"The team wanted players to be comfortable with the core game-play of their class before introducing them to more complex game mechanics, so you will not have immediate access to Advanced Classes at character creation. Instead, the choice will be given upon locating the Advanced Class trainer on your faction’s capital world. This is a mandatory choice; not picking an Advanced Class is not an option."
We'll leave you to speculate on this and what you think it means. However we'll discuss this in depth in our upcoming Transmission 54, so make sure to give it a listen!
You can view the complete article from this Friday update here.
Make sure to check out Steam this week as they have a lot of Star Wars titles on sale for some very good prices. So if your a bargain hunter or maybe missed out on a particular title now's a great time.
Now if you haven't played Knights of the Old Republic and have been thinking of joining our play through as we revisit it, now's the perfect time. You can snag a copy of it for $2.50!! Do it now, you have no excuses! Many Ewoks may die otherwise!
Today we learn that Sean Dahlberg departs Bioware. Sean was a community leader within The Old Republic. He will be missed and did a fantastic job building the community. Good luck on all your future endeavors.
It appears Joanne Laroche will be taking up the position of senior community coordinator.
Source: Joanne Laroche
Last night we got a great piece of news from Bioware during the PAX presentation. In conjunction with that a certain video was released teasing the crowds about unraveling the past of Darth Revan. His fate has left many fans pondering certain questions about what was the outcome of his venture into the Unknown Regions & what else that may have happened after his final battle on the Star Forge with Darth Malak.
With this video it appears we will be able to venture into his complex and find out what may have happened to him and at the very least uncover some much eagerly anticipated information. Make sure to watch the video towards the end as a very special droid appears, whom has a tendency to call people "meat bags"
It's short, but it's Sweet. The first video trailer for TOR's space side-game has been revealed.
Check out the video yourself!
The short trailer gives viewers a glimpse at what the flight game will look like. It's cinematic and epic for sure. The sound effects for the weapons are currently copies of original trilogy ships such as those from the A-wing, X-wing, and TIE fighter.
Check it out for yourself. We'll be sure to talk about it in Transmission 48.
Also, check out this interview by Gamespot about space, but also about advanced calsses and companion "kits".