Official Holiday Updates

Over the Holidays there have been a number of official updates on the SW: TOR site and instead of posting a new one for each of them I thought I'd just post them all in one post.


First of all they posted a bunch of new screenshots and concept art.

Screenshots

The Jedi Temple


Droids


Village on Tython


Jedi Meeting Room


An Assassin Droid


Sand of Korriban


Sith Attack Plans


Sith Academy



Concept Art

Repiblic Generator


Imperial Sensor Array


Republic Troop Transport


Competition Among Acolytes


HoloProjector


A Wraid


Sith Blaster Rifles


Jedi Lightsaber



Next they have an article titled "Capturing the Look of STAR WARS™: The Old Republic™" where they look at the art-style of SW: TOR and why they chose it. Here's an excerpt:

The stylized realism approach has many advantages. For instance, Star Wars: The Old Republic will have a unique and instantly recognizable appearance which will continue to look great as it ages. Being on the bleeding edge graphically is a lot of fun for artists, but as that edge moves forward, games that were once living at that frontier of graphics tend to look dated as technology improves. We want to achieve visuals that look great at the lower-end computers, knowing that if they look great there, they will look great on all machines, both now and in the future.

Next is a BioWare Blog post by Mark How, Principal Lead Animator, explaining why he feels that it should be difficult to get a cup of coffee in the middle of the afternoon (really, it's SW: TOR related). Here's an excerpt:

Combat is extremely crucial to the success of most video games and Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ is no exception. By referencing the films, we are able to create dynamic and exciting combat, but we are also challenged by the films themselves to deliver that same experience in a user controlled environment. The core of combat in Star Wars movies has always been centralized around the iconic saber battles. And what would a Star Wars game be without fantastic lightsaber battles?

And finally they have more concept art and forum avatars. They added ten new avatars to use on their forums (including a new twi'lek female I'm using there now). And the following six new concept art images:

Nautolan


Neimoidians


Rakata


Gamorreans


Kitonaks


Bith


I wonder how many of these are player races, though as long as they have humans and twi'leks I'll be happy.

And that's it for now.