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It was inevitable, right? You can't have a Star Wars game without a Hoth level and Star Wars: The Old Republic will indeed feature the Tauntaun-able tundras that permeate the ice planet. The news comes via the game's site, which points out the planet's storied history of conflict. Years before the Empire and the Rebel Alliance were duking it out there in The Empire Strikes Back -- which turns 30 today -- the Republic and Imperial forces clashed during The Great War.
Feel free to take a virtual tour of the planet in our gallery below. If you'd like to know more, check out its profile page on the SWTOR site.
#bioware
Just in time for the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back, BioWare reveals the frozen wastes of Hoth as the next playable planet in Star Wars: The Old Republic. More »
The official blog for Star Wars: The Old Republic was recently updated, adding more information about the advanced class system which was unveiled late last week. The branching specialization tree won't just allow you to unlock new abilities for your galactic hero -- it will also unlock armor and weapon proficiencies, as well as other "role-defining Abilities." We're guessing "Relentlessly Choking Out Unsuccessful Subordinates" shows up somewhere on one of the Sith Warrior's sets.
Each specialty is broken down into two smaller skill trees, apparently leaving room for specialization inside each specialization. In addition, players will have access to a shared basic skill set, which they'll always have access to, regardless of which advanced path they traverse. Check out the game's blog for more info on how to personalize your spacefarer.
#bioware
With only four classes for each of its two factions, BioWare's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic further mixes things up with the Advanced Class system, a talent system that splits each class right down the middle. More »
Eurogamer recently got an extensive look at BioWare's upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, during which time it learned the game's seemingly narrow list of eight classes will be expanded upon by offering the player specialization options. Each class will have the option of two distinct "Advanced Classes," increasing the total number of archetypes available in the game by, like ... 300 percent? Maybe?
The first two Advanced Classes revealed can be chosen by a high-level Sith Warrior, who can follow the path of the Marauder (a damage-dealing, Darth Maul-esque class) or the Juggernaut (a heavily armored, Darth Vader-esque class). Considering the former got totally cut in half by Ewan McGregor, we might appreciate the safety and security offered by the latter.
During EA's fourth-quarter earnings conference call, CEO John Riccitiello made a reference to a "major new massively multiplayer online game" -- probably Star Wars: The Old Republic. "EA is incurring significant development costs for a major new massively multiplayer online game," he said. "However, this game is not expected to ship in fiscal '11." Later, CFO Eric Brown responded directly to a question about The Old Republic, saying that "It's not included in our FY11 release slate."
This all but confirms that The Old Republic is the game referred to by Riccitiello during a similar call in January, when he gave a "major MMO" a release date of spring 2011. If it's in the spring, but not in EA's fiscal 2011 (which ends March 31), that means we can look forward to some Jedi fellowship sometime between April and June of next year.
Ever since we were burned by the seemed-cool-until-you-heard-him-coughing General Grievous, we've been leery of new Star Wars characters -- old George doesn't really make them like he used to. But Star Wars:The Old Republic is a BioWare project, and that's a company that knows its characters, so we'll give these three new website reveals a chance. General Garza is a tough-as-nails Galactic Republic officer who's been accused of overseeing secret assaults throughout the galaxy, the Mandalore is a warrior-king who supports the Empire (and leads the Mandalorians -- Boba Fett's peeps) and Darth Malgus is -- well, with a name like that, you can probably guess.
Yup, he's a Dark Lord of the Sith, and we actually saw him in the trailer released last year. Guess which character is popular enough to get a book written about them? Decieved is a novel by Paul Kemp due out in December that will tell the story of "his rise to fame and glory as the Sith Lord who destroyed the Jedi Temple." Now that sounds like a character with some depth! It's not like you could write a whole book about General Grievous, right?
#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 »
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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 »
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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.
