#bioware
Remember the amazingly cool trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, where the Sith crashed a transport into a Jedi temple? Now you can meet the man in charge, Darth Malgus, an anti-hero so interesting he scores his own novel. More »
The latest developer diary for Star Wars: The Old Republic, posted above, makes an excellent point about the combat featured in other MMORPGs -- it's super unfair. Take a look at World of Warcraft, in which some dungeons pit 40 "heroes" against a single dude. Those odds don't sound very "heroic" to us, sir.
That's why SW:ToR hopes to even the odds by sliding the hero-to-villain ratio slide more towards the latter in most in-game encounters. Don't get too worried about being outnumbered, however -- based solely on the maneuvers featured in the video above, we think that small group of enraged Tusken Raiders is going to drop like a sack of bricks.
#clips
How do you make sure people play something other than a Jedi or Sith in Star Wars: The Old Republic? By making sure the other classes can kick Force-sensitive ass. More »
#bioware
If the latest planet revealed for BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic sounds familiar, then you're mistaken, as Voss has never appeared anywhere in the Star Wars mythos. More »
There was a great disturbance in the rumor-Force yesterday when VG247 acquired a memo from UK retailer GAME with an alleged upcoming release list for Xbox 360 -- a docket that included a listing for Star Wars: The Old Republic. While the better part of the day was spent hypothesizing about which button would be mapped to "Kill Dude With Lightsaber" (right bumper, of course), BioWare wasted no time in squashing the rumor.
"While we recognize that there are other operating systems and platforms available for games today, our development is specific to the personal computer using the Windows operating system at this time," BioWare's Sean Dahlberg explained. As to why the game was on the Xbox 360 release list, Dahlberg hadn't the foggiest idea, but reassured that the game "should not be on there."
#visionstatements
I spoke to the men running the studio behind many of the world's biggest role-playing games a couple of weeks ago, to discuss a variety of things. I left with a bonus: The BioWare Vision Statement. More »
Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia recently visited EA to check in on the progress of the company's upcoming, cutscene-driven MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. He reported that "earnings are somewhat depressed" due to the development costs for the game, but EA management is hopeful that they'll recoup this cash when the title brings in over two million subscribers. He added that, at the very least, the game needs over one million players in order for EA to break even.
We think they might be setting the bar a little too high for themselves. Why not make the monthly subscription fee cost $20,000, and then just hope that 500 outrageously wealthy, rabid Star Wars fans hop on board? There have got to be at least 500 successful venture capitalists out there who own a baker's dozen of collectible Millennium Falcon models.
#money
For about fifteen bucks a month, you can play World of Warcraft or most other massively multiplayer online games. That's the genre standard. Could the next big MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic shake that up? More »
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LucasArts and BioWare have thus far released information for their upcoming MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic, at a painfully slow pace -- the same goes for the hands-on opportunities they've offered us over the past year. When we finished our demo of the game at GDC, we were still left with a number of the same questions we had when we checked out the game back in December: Will there be space combat? What community features will be available? Can we build our own sentient, wise-cracking droids which secretly possess hearts of gold (and tin)?
Alas, these questions remain unanswered. However, our GDC demo did clarify one hang-up we've been concerned about since the game was announced: Why would anyone play as a non-Force user? The answer is now clear. It's because the Galactic Republic's Trooper class is awesome.
#handson
Much has been made about Star Wars: The Old Republic and its "next generation storytelling" driven by volumes of spoken dialog. But what's it like to play the game? More »
#bioware
It you thought Mos Eisley was a wretched hive of scum and villainy, wait until you get a load of Belsavis, the Republic prison planet that houses some of the most fearsome criminals in the Star Wars: The Old Republic galaxy. More »
#ea
According to the man who's had to write the cheques for the game's development, Electronic Arts is taking massive multiplayer online title The Old Republic seriously. Very seriously. More »
Surprise! Major MMOs cost batty-bonkers-cuckoo amounts of money to produce. Eurogamer reports that Electronic Arts CFO Eric Brown said as much today, describing Star Wars: The Old Republic as the "largest ever development project, period, in the history of the company." EA is apparently betting big on having something like Activision Blizzard's World of Warcraft with The Old Republic. Brown guesstimates that WoW cost about $100 million to launch back in 2004 -- the game makes something like that now in a month.
The executive explained that the average game costs about $30 million to produce, but that "any MMO costs significantly more than that." With an expected spring 2011 release, hopefully EA will start making a return at that time on its investment in a galaxy far, far away. Otherwise, the gaping maw of the Rancor would be preferable to what investors will do.
The sixth developer diary for Star Wars: The Old Republic has been released and it features a new (yet familiar) location players will be able to visit when the MMO finally goes live. Devastated by the sinister Sith Lord Darth Malak in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the post-apocalyptic world of Taris will be a "major world" in the upcoming Bioware MMO. While the original vision for the ruined planet was to be a giant swamp-like crater, Bioware smartly decided to shape the environment as a vertical wasteland that both the Republic and Imperial factions are attempting to reshape.
EA CEO John Riccitiello mentioned during the company's reduced earnings conference call yesterday that the publisher plans to launch its "major MMO" in the spring of 2011. With no other announced "major MMO" in the works at Electronic Arts, the common wisdom of the Jedi (which can sometimes lead to bad things), points to that being Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic's release window. The company refused to elaborate further or acknowledge what game the executive was talking about.
Eurogamer notes that other possibilities are Realtime Worlds' APB or Need for Speed: World Online, but neither has the hype of the Star Wars game. Of course, there's also a chance that EA has some super-secret MMO hidden away like a Sith apprentice.
The good folks at IncGamers had a chat with one of BioWare's founding medical doctors, Ray Muzyka, about the company's history of classic single-player gaming and its upcoming foray into the world of massively multiplayer with Star Wars: The Old Republic. Muzyka says that the line between solo and collective experiences is blurring: even traditionally single-player games are dipping into the vast realms of multiplayer co-op and competition through online social tools and downloadable content.
Speaking specifically, he says that Dragon Age: Origins is a good example, with online social features for what is definitely a single-player experience. And Mass Effect 2, he says, will explore these ideas through its own DLC. In fact, he outright guarantees us that BioWare is "planning more [DLC] than in Mass Effect 1." As players who couldn't get enough of the two packs on offer for the original game, that's Muzyka to our ears.
Through disciplined training and meditation, the Jedi Knights achieve perfect union of body and mind, allowing them to meet any situation with focused, fearless attention.
Strengthened by the Force, they are able to turn this training into brilliant displays of lightsaber combat inspiring allies and disheartening those who would see the Republic fall.
From the majestic skyline to the dark and seedy underground levels, a large team of The Old Republic developers worked together to construct the dynamic city-world of Coruscant.
