EA's E3 2010 Press Conference

EA's press conference for this year's E3 just finished... and as expected it finished with a smashing The Old Republic cinematic trailer.

Before that though they had two announcements for The Old Republic.

First, they've confirmed that every player gets their own ship ingame, which acts as their home and base of operations for exploring the galaxy. Though they didn't go into more detail than that I suspect (as I have for a long time) that ships will function much the same as your ship did in the first two KotOR games... a place where your companions hang out, from where you can travel to other planets, and perhaps for things like crafting. They also briefly mentioned personalization, but at this point it's anyone's guess what that means exactly.

The other announcement is that they had was that of PvP Warzones. They mentioned one on Alderaan, but I didn't really get more details beyond that. Just that you're supposedly have to pick a side; Republic or Empire. Who would've thought that?

And then the trailer. I've blogged about the leaked trailer before, but I didn't actually see it myself until the press conference (and then in HD too). And I was once again blown away. You can probably see it yourself easily enough, but it shows the Empire attacking Alderaan and destroying a city there. But a group of Troopers get ready to strike back (I'm guessing that's Havok Squad based on the symbol the main Trooper had on his arm). There was a big clash of the Troopers against the Sith, but it didn't go that well for the Republic and our lead character was about to be struck down... when a female Jedi using a double lightsaber (so I'm guessing a Jedi Consular) jumped onto the scene and started fighting the Sith in another great lightsaber duel, fighting Darth Malgus (who didn't have his face mask yet here). At one point she used the Force to pull down a tree and when things went badly for a bit the Trooper jumped in again and blew Darth Malgus back with a grenade. Then the Jedi unleashed her Force powers and seemingly crushed the Sith between it and a rockface. The battle won the Trooper show up a flare while talking about a spark of hope when all across the planet more flares went up.

And that concluded the trailer with once again me having to pick my jaw up off the desk.

Currently the swtor site is experiencing some trouble (probably being hammered or they're busy updating it) so it'll probably be a while before anything is up there. Also Gametrailers is experiencing trouble probably due to all the people trying to log in to watch the conferences. So for now you'll have to do with the link I provided in my previous post, until a HD version goes up somewhere.

but that trailer... wow. I'm betting this is another "Best Trailer" award (in a lot of places).

Oh, one final thing, they also confirmed that people will be able to get hands-on experience with the game during E3, so I'm sure that we'll get plenty of reports on that in the coming days. Possibly even some gameplay videos.


[UPDATE]

I came across a couple of links online as well talking about pretty much the same things I mentioned above. The 1UP article talks a little about starships, armor and Warzones. Here's an excerpt:

Producer Blaine Christine summarizes the new features as ones that, "show ownership for players." That is, they give players something to call their own and to show off and socialize with. The first of these ownership/MMO features is the fact that, in Christine's words, "every player has his or her own personal starship." He continues, "It's your hub of operations; it's your home within the game world. It's where you come back to after a mission; it's where you have deeper interactions with your companion characters; it's where you store your gear or equip yourself out before adventuring again. But since this is a massively multiplayer game, it's also a place where you can bring your friends." Christine then shows a short video detailing examples of player ships: a Corellian transport for a Galactic Republic player, and a "Sith Interceptor" for Sith Empire players.

The Massively article talks very briefly about the trailer (but doesn't include the trailer itself), speculating that the Jedi Consular might be Satele Shan. And the Kotaku article also talks (even more briefly) about the trailer, including it as well. I love their opening paragraph:

In this new cinematic trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, we're supposed to feel sorry for Alderaan, as it's enslaved by the Sith Empire. I don't know. They're only occupying it. It's not like they blew it up.

Guess one should count their blessings.

SWTor.com is still down. I think I'll get some sleep and see whatever they have cooking there tomorrow...

...after I watch that trailer one more time.

[UPDATE] It seems that the HD trailer is available at Gametrailers:



[link] to additional features article at 1UP.
[link] to trailer article at Massively.
[link] to trailer article at Kotaku.
[link] to HD E3 trailer at Gametrailers.