SWTOR's E3 2012

Last week was E3 again, and SWTOR was there as well. During EA's press conference on Monday Dr. Ray Muzyka stepped on stage to talk about The Old Republic:

BioWare also posted the video Dr. Muzyka shows at the end there on the official website:

Preview Exciting New Reveals from E3!

Throughout E3, journalists will be able to take a sneak peek at some of the exciting content that is coming to Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ in the next year. This includes new Space Content, an increased level cap, the upcoming Operation: Terror From Beyond, which takes players to the Gree-controlled world of Asation to battle against an army of unseen horrors, and more!

But our biggest reveal is the announcement of Makeb, a brand new planet never-before seen in the Star Wars™ universe! A fully-realized world for you and your friends to explore, Makeb will also introduce an all-new storyline. The Hutt Cartel, tired of being ignored by the great powers of the galaxy, has taken Makeb in an attempt to acquire an unmatched power which can bring both the Galactic Republic and Sith Empire to their knees. It will be up to you and your allies to face off against the Hutt Cartel, breaking their hold on this once tranquil world and end their bid for galactic domination.

Preview Makeb and see a small sampling of the other content coming up, in this new gameplay preview!

One thing you might notice when watching the two videos is that the second one, the one on the official site, doesn't include the "New Playable Species: Cathar" bit. I'm not sure why they left that out, but it's not there and it definitely is in the first one.

For the rest it's a new Flashpoint, a new Warzone, a new space mission, etc. The biggest surprise in the whole thing was that they're planning to raise the level cap before the year is out, extending the class stories onto a new planet from what I understand. Dr. Muzyka also announced that The Old Republic will be free-to-play for the first fifteen levels come July (which is pretty much the same as all the free weekends and friend trials that they've had, just without limit).

To be honest I found the whole thing, SWTOR's entire E3 presence, to be decidedly disappointing. Perhaps that is because I was hoping for a big announcement, like the development of an expansion or such and nothing of what they announced really fit the bill. In fact everything was altogether very expected. I would even say that it sounded somewhat minimal in the way that they represented it as "one of everything".

True, the raised level cap was a surprise... but I'm not actually sure that's a good thing. One of the biggest challenges for TOR right now is giving people enough to do. By raising the level cap, even if it's just by five levels (as I suspect), you're basically invalidating all of the current endgame content (just remember how trivial level 45 content is for your level 50 character). To keep all of that relevant they have to do a lot of extra work. Work which, I think, would be better spent on either making more current endgame content, or by making more of the existing content viable for a maxed out character (like downscaling characters going back to lower zones and such; lesson learned from GW2). Sure I want to continue my class stories and adding more for that is good, but I think that they can do this without raising the level cap.

Anyway, after the break more details about changes coming in Game Update 1.3, details on character transfers, the Community Q&A from last Friday, a bunch of links from E3, and the developer quotes.

Welcome to Game Update 1.2 - Legacy

Yesterday BioWare release the much anticipated Game Update 1.2. And with it they added a bunch of updates to the site, including some surprises. To begin with Game Director James Ohlen put a welcome message up on the Community Blog:

Today we released our second major Game Update, Legacy. The scope of this update is much larger than our first update and is probably one of the largest free updates ever released for a MMORPG. We’ve talked a lot about how we are going to support our fans throughout 2012 with major updates to the game. We hope the Legacy update proves to you how serious we are about this. 

This Game Update has something for everyone. A new Operation, Flashpoint and Warzone. New solo content on Corellia. The unveiling of our Legacy system. Interface customization, Guild banks, Galactic Trade improvements, etc. If you want an idea of just how big this update is, check out the patch notes. Over 18,000 words long!

The most important element of this update is the Legacy system. Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ has more unique story content than any other entertainment product in history. The Legacy system allows you to experience that story content in a different way. We will be continuing to support the Legacy system throughout the year, with major additions coming in our future updates. Including one that will make fans of the original Knights of the Old Republic very happy.

Our future updates are largely based off of feedback from you, our fans. We hear you when you ask for easier ways to group, a way to transfer characters to other servers and that you want more ways to engage in PVP. These things are coming - many of them in our third update.

However, we also want to surprise you with additions to the game that you weren’t expecting. While we managed to cover a lot of the biggest Star Wars fantasies with our initial release, we know we didn’t get them all. If you have a favorite moment from the Star Wars™ movies that you have yet to be able to experience in the game so far, be assured that we know about those as well. One day you will get to live out your Wedge Antilles, General Veers or Sebulba fantasies. 

James Ohlen
Game Director

Be sure to check out everything that’s new in Game Update 1.2 with the News Articles and Community Blog Posts that we’ve published about it so far.

News Articles
Coming in Game Update 1.2
Developer Dispatch: The Legacy System
A Quick Look at UI Customization
Warzone: Novare Coast

Community Blogs
Your Saga Continues: Story in Game Update 1.2
Crew Skills in Game Update 1.2
Your Legacy Begins
PvP in Game Update 1.2
Community Q&A: Friday March 30th, 2012: Game Update 1.2 Special
Community Q&A: Friday April 6th, 2012: Game Update 1.2 Special
Update on Ranked Warzones in Game Update 1.2

They also posted a new video for the new Operation, some disappointing news about ranked Warzones, and some good news for many subscribers. For all that read on after the break.

Your Legacy Begins

I'm running a bit late (again) with my updates. Doesn't help that BioWare had a whole bunch of them. We've got two official blog posts, a Q&A, a new podcast (yes) and a lot of developer quotes. So let's get started.

First the important news though; as of last weekend I'm playing TOR again. After getting my Agent to level 50 and finishing the class story (as well as some things in my personal life) I'd pretty much stopped playing TOR for a number of weeks. The intention was to start a new class (a Consular) and play with a friend (playing a Knight), but that didn't materialize so instead of wasting my subscription fee I decided to just play solo. If it happens after all I think I'll just play a (healing) Trooper; getting through those first ten levels should be quick enough.

Two things I've noticed over the last weekend. First, it's incredibly easy getting a group as a healer to the point of people coming to you to ask you to group with them. Though I've played healers in the past it was always with someone so I didn't really look for grouping up with others. Second thing; healing in a group is incredibly easy and somewhat boring. I've got a full skill bar, yet am limited to using just three of them (at level 15) more or less. That was while playing Hammer Station (during which we did wipe once because of a mistake I made). I don't mind it that much though; I kind of like focusing on keeping my group healthy instead of killing enemies. And I'm sure things will pick up at higher level. Overall I'm enjoying my Consular so far; quite enjoying the somewhat slower, more mystical pace of the story.

Anyway, enough about me; on to the official news.

First is a blog post by Senior Game Designer William Wallace called "Your Legacy Begins". Here's an excerpt:

You may have already started your Legacy by picking a Legacy Name. This happens when you finish Chapter 1 with your first character. From this point, all of your characters on that server are now considered part of your Legacy, regardless of faction. This means that any existing characters which have not been played past Chapter 1 will gain a Legacy Name, and any newly created characters will also have their Legacy Name available from character creation.

From Game Update 1.2: Legacy, unlocking your Legacy grants you access to a newly expanded Legacy Panel (accessed, by default, by pressing the ‘Y’ key) where you can modify your family tree, and see what Legacy Rewards you have unlocked.

I'm probably sounding a bit like a broken record on this by now, but I still wonder what the point of the family tree is. It doesn't really do anything for roleplayers as it doesn't give them anything that they couldn't already do and is more restricting than liberating (I can't help but come up with some complex family trees that this legacy system probably can't represent such as half-siblings, incestuous relationships in the tree, double relationships such as your brother also being your rival, etc, etc; but then I haven't tried it on the test server so maybe it can do all of that and more). It just seems like a lot of effort to implement something for fairly little return. It would help if other people could see your family tree (even if it's 'just' somewhere on the website). The only thing that I can think of is that they did it to re-enforce the notion of this being a 'family legacy' as that really doesn't exist anywhere other than in this family tree despite how hard BioWare is saying that familial bonds are a cornerstone of Star Wars. It doesn't do anything for any of their four pillars.

Beyond the tree the rest of the Legacy system is reasonably nice though. Though I'm not entirely sure about the whole Heroic Moment requirement for class unlocks, considering that I can count the number of times I actually used the heroic moment with my Agent on one hand. Considering the requirements (Heroic Moment, companion character, long cooldown, etc) it all seems a bit too restrictive. Not to mention that the Agent's unlock, Orbital Bombardment as I understand it, has a long cast time; I felt that it was only really useful as an opening move when facing a group of weaker mobs. As such I somehow seriously doubt that my Consular will ever make use of Legacy Orbital Bombardment. But it's the thought that counts.

There's a few surprises in there as well. I didn't know about the extra customization options for some species, let alone that those would be unlocked too. I didn't know of the alignment milestones (though it doesn't affect grey alignment just yet; see below). I didn't know of the companion unlocks, class emotes or class buffs. And I didn't know of the Rocket Boost. So overall a nice system.

Read on after the break for the PvP blog article, the Community Q&A, the announcement of the new official podcast and the developer quotes.

Crew Skills in Game Update 1.2

BioWare, particularly Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller, posted a new Community Blog entry about Crew Skills in Update 1.2. Here's an excerpt:

Reverse engineering and Research

Reverse engineering has shown to be a surprisingly popular mechanic practiced by a large number of our players. With this update, the team has not only significantly increased the chances of successfully researching a new schematic through reverse engineering, but also improved the overall functionality of the reverse engineering system.

For example, you will now see a 'Research Available' indicator in item tooltips while in reverse engineering mode, indicating if a schematic can be researched from an item. The dreaded 'You already know this schematic' message when discovering an already known schematic is also a thing of the past. Instead, players now discover another available schematic in that case, leading to less frustrating and more predictable research advancement.

We have also added new content for both the leveling and end game:

• Players with the appropriate professions are now able to reverse engineer random loot items and acquire materials from them - including Operations materials from end game items.
• Reverse engineering and research is now available for tier 2 end game items (and will automatically happen if the player wins a 'disassemble' loot in a group).
• Mods from tier 2 end game items may now be extracted and researched. However, Armorings that provide a set bonus can only be extracted. They do not yield research schematics.
• Modifiable weapons and armor can now be reverse engineered and researched into empty, custom (orange) shells with the same name and appearance, adding a wide variety of new outfits to the game.

Sounding good.

Also, though I won't quote it, BioWare announced this weekend will be another Weekend Pass Free Trial for those who didn't participate in the first one.

Your Saga Continues

I'll be honest. I'm finding myself having a hard time bringing up any enthusiasm for TOR and haven't played in weeks. Though I'm eager to start playing my Consular, I'm waiting on a friend who I was supposed to play her together with (and that friend is likely deep into Mass Effect 3 right now; it's getting to the point where I'm just considering playing alone as I'm wasting my subscription fee like this).

But anyway, that lack of enthusiasm extends to keeping the blog updated, which in turn means I've got a rather big backlog. Particularly since last week a fair number of details from the Guild Summit were released across various sites. Add about half-a-dozen official BioWare updates and a truckload of dev tracker notes and it's a lot to get through.

So let's get to it. To start with last Friday BioWare's writer Charles Boyd posted a BioWare Community blog entry titled "Your Saga Continues: Story in Game Update 1.2". Here's an excerpt:

First, you will be called upon to return to the embattled world of Corellia, joining their faction’s forces to carry out missions in an all-new district known as the Black Hole. Refineries in the Black Hole process a rare and unstable starship fuel called hypermatter that’s necessary for all starship travel, and a critical component of fleet operations for the Republic and the Empire. Hoping to play both sides for maximum profits, a corrupt Corellian councilor has seized control of the entire district, hiring the toughest mercenaries and deadliest criminal scum available to lock down his holdings, effectively enslaving the refinery workers, and brutalizing anyone who tries to stand against him. Whether the councilor’s new regime stands will be up to you.

Read on after the break for... well a whole lot of stuff.

Economic Changes in Patch 1.1.5

Georg Zoeller posted an article on BioWare's Community Blog for The Old Republic, talking about economic changes. Here's an excerpt:

Hi everyone,

Massively Multiplayer Online games are built around living, breathing worlds that are always evolving, and Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ is no different. In our upcoming Game Update 1.2, we’ll be introducing a wide assortment of new features and content, while also introducing a number of improvements and changes to the in-game economy.

As we work to create a more player-driven economy, you can expect significant improvements to Crew skills, and an extension of Crew skill gameplay, such as item creation and research, into the Elder-Game content. You’ll also see new items brought into the game, including new schematics, Legacy items, a new tier of Player vs Player and Player vs Environment weapons and armor, Legacy items, new schematics, and the ability to extract base-mods from purple items, as well as many other changes and improvements.

Weekly patch 1.1.5 (which is now on the Public Test Server) implements a number of changes in preparation of the upcoming Game Update, including the much requested removal of Light Side / Dark Side requirements on color crystals.

As it is expected when large scale changes are made to an economic system, enterprising players often find interesting opportunities to benefit from their knowledge about the changes beforehand (for example by studying test server patch notes).

With patch 1.1.5, we’ve decided to embrace these economic entrepreneurs and even go a step further:

By publishing a series of rumors and stories that are coming in across both the Imperial and Republic news wires, we are providing all of you with advance knowledge about some of the things to come in the near future…

The rest of the article includes these in character "rumors and stories". Mainly it's changes to speeder availability and color crystals.

It must say that I'm having a hard time understanding how this might impact me. I understand that part of it is talking about the crystal vendors that they've added on the test server; though I thought that those were just added to test the crystals it seems now that they're intending to add those to live as well, but only briefly. It feels as if they're doing this to seed the community with those crystals and then removing supply leaving it up to players to sell them on. Then again that only works if those crystals don't bind (as binding an item effectively takes it out of the economy) or if they intend to regularly re-supply the community again.

I don't think I like that. I guess it's a way to keep items rare now that they're no longer bound by alignment. But I think that the whole thing of keeping items 'rare' is BS to begin with. I don't want color crystals or speeders or anything else because it makes me 'special', but because I like the color/vehicle/etc. And I'm certainly not going to pay a fortune to another player just because they had the money and level and were lucky enough to get an item during the brief time the item was available.

I'm still hopeful that I'm simply misunderstanding the whole thing and that they are planning to add these items as their own puzzles much in the way that they did the Magenta Adegan crystal. That at least sounded like fun. Then at least you can work specifically towards it. But all having truly rare items will do is create a class of haves and have nots. Then again perhaps that's not fair of me to say considering that I still (even at level 50) use my pre-order STAP speeder to get everywhere. But at least I can't sell that.

The Old Republic Asia Pacific Launch

I'm back from dealing with a family matter. Next to the weekly maintenance and patch not a lot happened while I was gone, except that BioWare announced their Asia Pacific launch. Here's an excerpt:

BioWare and LucasArts are excited to announce that Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ will officially launch in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore on March 1st, 2012! Fans in these regions who purchase the game will be able to experience their very own Star Wars™ saga on regional servers. Players who have already begun their journey will also have a limited-time opportunity to migrate their characters from their current servers to Asia Pacific servers after the launch on March 1st, giving them the chance to take advantage of the decreased network latency by playing on a regional server. All players who qualify for a character transfer will be notified in early March with more details.

In the press release announcing the Asia Pacific launch date, General Manager of the BioWare Label’s MMO Business Unit and Co-Founder of BioWare Dr. Greg Zeschuk expressed appreciation for the patience of fans in the region:

Our biggest priority for The Old Republic has always been to deliver a high quality product and high quality service and we are pleased with our results in North America and Europe. We appreciate that our fans in these countries have been patient and we are excited to deliver this same great customer experience to players this March.

So that's March 1^st for those in Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia. The news goes into more detail regarding prices, subscription fees (in US Dollars for some reason), and pre-orders (for those in Australia and New Zealand). And there's a full press release for the announcement as well.

Read on after the break for some more news from BioWare, including a bit about the Guild Summit, the Dev Tracker Summary and a reminder to become a Founder.

Busting Bugs and Fixing Exploits

BioWare posted another developer blog titled "Busting Bugs and Fixing Exploits". In it Rich Vogel talks about BioWare's process for fixing bugs and exploits. Here's an excerpt from the full blog post:

Let me start by explaining how we go about determining when to fix an issue in the live game, whether it is a bug or an exploit. Let’s begin with exploits – those cases when we determine that a bug in the code can give an unfair advantage to a player. (Remember, not all bugs are exploits!)

If an exploit is discovered that threatens players’ experience in the game or the in-game economy, we will usually try to create an Emergency Patch to fix that exploit. Before we declare something an emergency though, we have to validate the issue with our internal Quality Assurance, or QA team. They gather data working with our Customer Service, analytics, and development teams to determine the extent of the exploit and the steps needed to reproduce it. Once we have the steps, we work on a plan to fix the issue. Depending how long the issue will take to fix and how risky it is, we will decide if we need to temporarily disable the cause of the exploit in the game.

To those more familiar with the process of developing a game most of it probably won't come as a surprise. But even so it's good to be reminded that fixing bugs can be a complicated process. Just because you run into a bug that seems like a simple thing to fix doesn't mean that it'll get fixed immediately. And just because it might take a while to get fixed doesn't mean that they're ignoring the bug. Games are very complicated things, MMOs more so than most (particularly an MMO that's live as you want to avoid introducing new bugs even more than you otherwise would).

They are most definitely fixing bugs though, as anyone keeping an eye on the continuous stream of patch notes can attest.

After the break a number of links from across the web and the developer quotes.

Teaching Elephants To Do Ballet

That was too good a title to pass up. The Old Republic is a very, very big game and creating it was a very, very big project with lots of moving part. And apparently what Greg Zeschuk said about that was that: “Coordinating it all is like teaching elephants to do ballet.” There's a bit on that, some stock yo-yo-ing that happened last week, some reviews and interviews, and some barking dogs. But all that after the break, first there's a note on the Community Blog by Jeff Hickman on the Ilum situation:

After Game Update 1.1 went live, we discovered that the Open World PvP area on Ilum was not working as our PvP design team intended. As many of you know, large groups of players began capturing the Ilum control points, then 'camping' at the enemy's base. This led to a very frustrating experience for a number of players who were unable to leave their base and fight back against their attackers. It was not a fair gameplay experience. In addition, some players on the attacking side gained more Valor points than designed for the time they spent in PvP.

The amount of Valor granted from these activities was significantly more than intended and we are now carefully investigating players who were on Ilum during this period, and present at some of these 'camping' events. I can reassure you that those who were involved and who gained an unfair advantage over other players inappropriately will be carefully reviewed and action will be taken to restore game balance. This could include Valor adjustments or account actions in accordance with the severity of the issue.

We have made the decision not to enact a mass 'rollback' of Valor points for all players in the game, or even on Ilum. This would unfairly penalize some players who may not have been present during this event. Rest assured though, anyone and everyone who is found to have exploited the situation to an unreasonable degree will be investigated and actions taken as needed. Our in-game metrics are able to give us precise details on where players were, what they were doing and what rewards they gained.

We take any sort of situation where one group of players gains an unexpected or unintended advantage over other players very seriously and will act to ensure that all players can have a fair and fun game experience.

Thanks for your patience while we worked to resolve this issue. Our team worked diligently to get a patch ready to address this and other issues, and we're already seeing the results in improved battles on Ilum. As always we welcome your feedback and will continue to improve moving forward!

Jeff Hickman,
Executive Producer – Live Services

I'm not sure if this will appease those who ran into the troubles on Ilum. And from what I understand (I don't really PvP and haven't been to Ilum yet) things still aren't quite right there. One of the biggest problems seems to be the faction imbalance where there's apparently (and not altogether surprisingly) a lot more Empire players than Republic ones. So BioWare has a lot of work ahead of them to make Ilum the PvP experience that it should be. Still, at least it sounds like they're trying.

After the list a second Community Blog post, this one by Georg Zoeller about the ability delay some people have been suffering from. Also the aforementioned laundry list of other posts.

Design Notes - Game Update 1.1

Game Update 1.1 - Rise of the Rakghouls has gone live and the servers are up. And on BioWare's Community Blog Game Director James Ohlen made a design notes post. Here is the text:

Today we are releasing our first major Game Update, Rise of the Rakghouls. Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ has had a very successful launch, but we know our work has only begun. We want you, our fans, to know that we’ll continue expanding and exploring the galaxy, ensuring it’s a place where new adventures are constantly unfolding.

Both high and low level players will discover new content and game systems waiting for them in this Game Update. Our goal is to provide something exciting for every type of player in the game: PVP players, Flashpoint fans, Guild members, space combat aces and role-players.

This first Game Update will show everyone how serious we are about expanding Star Wars: The Old Republic, and there’s much more to come. We have another major update planned for March and future content arriving throughout 2012 and 2013. We plan to release new Operations, Flashpoints, Warzones, Space Missions, single player content, vehicles, and companion characters. We’ll always be improving our existing game with additions like guild banks, PVP ranked matches and interface customization. Our Legacy system expands in March, bringing more options and a new level of depth to the existing character classes.

Our Game Updates will also include bug fixes, balance changes, performance improvements and exploit-proofing based on your feedback. We review reports from the community every day and compare them to gameplay metrics, QA bugs and our own experiences in the live game—where we’re playing right alongside you. Although we already address critical issues during our weekly updates, the major Game Updates will implement some of the most sweeping changes and fixes.

Expect a few surprises between these Game Updates, too. You never know when the Republic might strike Dromund Kaas, if a mysterious alien fleet could appear in the Core Worlds… or when the Rakghoul plague of Taris might infect the rest of the Galaxy. Changes are coming, and they’ll affect everyone.

We fully intend to support Star Wars: The Old Republic—and our players—for many years to come.

James Ohlen
Game Director

See, now you've got me curious as to what surprises between Game Updates they're going to have. Of course if I knew it wouldn't be a surprise anymore. Though considering the first update wouldn't it be appropriate to swarm the galaxy with Rakghoul?

I posted the full patch notes for update in my previous post.

Official Holiday Updates

For my second post in getting caught up with the news from over the holiday season (the first one listing the reviews that have been posted) I'm listing the official updates from the last couple of weeks.

It seems that BioWare pretty much stopped with the Friday updates (which is fine by me... made sense pre-release but not so much anymore now). But instead they started a blog with various developer posts and news about the game. Let me list the official updates I caught over the last few weeks, both from the official blog and their news feed:

• [link] to launch press release.
• [link] to welcome to SWTOR message.
• [link] to thank you for playing article.
• [link] to what's next article.
• [link] to a sneak peek.
• [link] to momentum surges article.
• [link] to a word on bugs.
• [link] to PvP Update.

I'm not going to quote all of them. Things like the press release and the welcome message and such I'll leave for you to read at the links above if you're interested. But, after the break, I will quote four of them which talk about the future. Additionally I've also included the developer quotes from the last few weeks (at least as far as I could get them).

Choose Your Side: Smuggler vs. Sith Warrior

Right now I'm on vacation (on my parents' not-that-fast computer), yesterday I was travelling, Monday my Internet was down and the days before that I was lost in a galaxy far, far away. So I'm a little late reporting last Friday's update.

Though at this point I think most people are more interested in playing the game than in reading about it. Either way.

Anyway, just as I predicted, last Friday BioWare gave us the final "Choose Your Side" video, facing off the Smuggler against the Sith Warrior. Here is the official news:

From the moment we announced the eight classes in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ fans have been pitting them against each other, arguing who would have the advantage in a one-on-one fight. The hallways of BioWare echo this debate, with the writers, combat designers and other developers all chiming in on which classes they feel will have the upper hand.

In the fourth and final installment of “Choose Your Side,” writers and developers discuss the ins and outs of the Smuggler and Sith Warrior classes, highlighting some of the skills and abilities that separate these classes from the rest. This time around, Senior Writer Hall Hood and Senior Game Designer William Wallace stand behind the Smuggler, while Writer Ian Ryan and PvP Designer Ben Pielstick speak for the Sith Warrior.

Personally my money is on the Sith Warrior for this. Lightsabers, use of the Force and an utter ruthlessness are probably going to be better than blasters and wisecracks. Don't get me wrong, I think Smugglers are more fun, but Han Solo did end up in that carbonite.

After the break a note regarding server queues, numerous articles and developer quotes.

Choose Your Side: Jedi Knight vs. Bounty Hunter

Friday again, so another update from BioWare on The Old Republic. This week they have a new video for us, the first in a new series, where two classes face off against each other. Not so much in the combat sense, but more in the sense that developers point out what they feel makes the class good, leaving it for the viewer to decide which class is better for them. Here's the official news:

From the moment that we announced the eight classes in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ fans have been pitting them against each other, arguing who would have the advantage in a one-on-one fight. The hallways of BioWare echo this debate, with the writers, combat designers and other developers all chiming in on which class they feel reigns supreme.

In our new video series “Choose Your Side,” members of the Star Wars: The Old Republic team plead their cases, highlighting only a few of the many skills and abilities that set their class apart from the rest. In the first video of the four-part series, two of the most iconic classes in the Star Wars™ universe stand toe-to-toe as the famed Jedi Knight squares off against the feared Bounty Hunter.

My vote? Jedi Knight, but then I'm a goody-two-shoes.

That wasn't the only update though. BioWare also has part two of William Wallace's Companion blog post. And earlier this week BioWare announced that this weekend they're having another Beta Testing Weekend. That and the developer quotes after the break.

Developer Dispatch: Companion Characters

It's been another busy weekend, and busy week, for The Old Republic. The biggest news of course was the release date announcement, and there's a fair bit more of that here too, but Friday BioWare also put up a blog and developer spotlight video centered around Companions. Here's the news for the video:

Even heroes need friends. Whatever epic journeys they may undertake, heroes always find they need allies to join in their adventures and help achieve their goals. This is why companions have been a traditional part of Star Wars™ since the very beginning and why they’ve been an important element in all the BioWare RPGs. Unsurprisingly, Companion Characters also play a critical role in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.

In your story, they will provide colorful commentary and comic relief, and as your saga unfolds, they will become your most trusted allies. In combat, they will fight at your side, complementing your tactical expertise, and supporting you wherever you go. We are also pleased to tell you that after testing and feedback, we’ve added an additional layer of customizability for companions both in terms of their appearances and in terms of their tactics in combat.

Watch this new Developer Dispatch to hear more on the importance of Companion Characters in The Old Republic and some of the many ways in which they contribute to your hero’s journey and the overall gameplay experience.

Let us know what you think of the video in the Forums.

It's a nice video, thought I don't think it really tells us anything new (beyond some glimpses at companions we officially don't know about yet).

Read on after the break for more companion info, including a BioWare blog entry and a Q&A, various interviews, some Huttball and the developer quotes.

Smuggler Character Progression

I'm back from my long weekend and had a bit of catching up to do regarding SWTOR (and it didn't help that they had site maintenance today). But now that I am I can bring you last Friday's updates.

There were three updates; a character progression video for Smugglers, a blog post about... let's call it The Old Republic's expanded universe, and a PAX highlights video. Here is the official news for the progression video:

As your character progresses through the saga of Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, you will see them advance as you unlock new skills and acquire or craft superior gear.

Whether running blockades to deliver vital supplies or evading Imperial patrols, the Smuggler must rely on his wit and guile just as much as the blaster at his side. As the price on his head rises and his enemies grow more dangerous, the Smuggler will have to acquire new skills and utilize more powerful weapons and armor to survive.

Get a look at some of the ways the Smuggler can progress and see just a small fraction of the weapons, armor and abilities that become available to him.

Let us know what you think of the video in the Forums.

It's a nice video, giving a decent impression of the Smuggler. But I can't help but note one thing. Though it's based on one of my favorite Indiana Jones scenes (if not executed quite so well) there's a scene that made me raise my eyebrows. I've wondered how they would balance a class such as a Smuggler to be in line with the power of a Jedi/Sith (at least in Troopers and Bounty Hunters I can see how they do it... lots of heavy weaponry). And the clip where the Smuggler one-shots a Sith shows that they didn't, not really. Because nobody should be able to score any kind of hit like that facing any kind of Force user. Yes, I know that you won't be able to one-shot like that in gameplay (ignoring level-differences), but it still seemed very odd that anyone could just do that with a blaster. It's like taking a pebble and throwing it through a fortified vault door.

It just brought back fears that they aren't handling the power balance, how Jedi/Sith are near demi-gods in the lore, properly. And that could have severe consequences for how the setting feels. How much it feels like Star Wars.

Anyway, after the break the other two updates, a few tidbits, and the developer quotes.

BioWare Blog: Maps, and their Making

Last Friday BioWare had a blog entry for us, written by Principal Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert, about the ingame maps. Here's an excerpt from the full post:

Galactic cartography

Having good navigation is important for any game, but particularly so in any massively multiplayer game, where wanderlust is positively encouraged. For The Old Republic, we realized that we had some relatively unique problems early on.

First off, once your character leaves their Origin World, other planets tend to be significantly larger in terms of land mass than those you might find in other MMOs – sometimes five or six times as large. While this is really cool for creating canonically expansive worlds in the Star Wars™ universe like Hoth or Tatooine, it also creates interesting design considerations. As the player is only adventuring in perhaps one-sixth of the map at any given time, having one world map would result in everything he cares about at a given time being compressed into a tiny corner of the map, making that map pretty much unusable.

Read the full post to get the rest of it.

It's interesting to read how maps are created for the game and what functionality they have. I think it might take a little getting used to their icons (when I played I had no clue what icon was supposed to mean what, but that I didn't really take the time to find out) and I'm not sure I like having to hover over quest icons to see their area, but it's got a couple of other nice features such as sharing quest icons with others in the party.

There hasn't been a whole lot on SWTOR this week (probably waiting for the next round of conventions), so after the break all we've got left is the developer quotes (with only one I found worth repeating in full).

The Post-Writing Polish Process

This Friday BioWare had three updates for us; a Fan Friday, a look back at how SWTOR did at E3 and a BioWare blog entry on what the writers are doing now that all the writing has been done.

The latter was written by BioWare Writer Ian Ryan; here's an excerpt from the full text:

If Nar Shaddaa is the Hutt version of 1970s Las Vegas, the Promenade represents the grand extravagance of the Vegas Strip. The first incarnation of the Promenade was impressive but subtle, a far cry from the glitzy and exorbitant tastes of the Hutts. The risk of a spontaneous party breaking out was slim to none. Here’s an image of the ‘old’ Nar Shaddaa Promenade:

After reviewing this, the writing team asked the artists to kick up the Promenade's glitz and glam levels a few hundred notches. Lead Concept Artist Arnie Jorgensen responded to the challenge and the result speaks for itself:

Now that's more like it! Lights pulse at every turn, expensive boutiques line the walls and yes - that's a golden statue of a Hutt taking center stage amidst the debauched revelry. Look closely and you may find even more gems. Now it looks like the kind of place you'd go to meet friends and plan your next adventure.

I'm not sure if a plaza with a giant golden Hutt is really the place where I'd want to hang out, but it's interesting to hear the writers going through the game and pointing out places that don't fit the writing. I think that helps a lot for giving the game a level of polish needed to help it stand out above the rest.

Read on after the break for the other two updates, a bunch more links to articles coming out of E3, and the developer quotes from last week.

BioWare Blog: Introducing the Codex

There are two major updates from last week. First is the Friday update with gave us a developer blog about the codex. And secondly the second embargo for the Fan Site Summit was lifted, allowing sites to write about their PvP experiences.

But first is the official update; here's an excerpt from the article:

The Datacrons Challenge

That’s not to say that some codex entries shouldn’t be challenging. Quite the opposite, we want some codex entries to be worthy challenges – but we want those challenges to be centered on exploration. Enter the datacrons. In-game datacrons will be a sub-set of the codex entries. The world builders had been kicking around the idea of these little world gizmos for a while now. These unique objects are placed throughout the world for the player to find, usually in hard to reach places. If you successfully reach one and interact with it, one of your stats will be increased -- permanently. The codex gave us a way to increase the visibility of these devices, and offer a player an easy way to track his progress finding them.

I do like the idea of the codex as I quite enjoy exploring and finding information, reading them back later. But I do wonder if the codex also tracks other things (like the Tome of Knowledge in Warhammer Online) or whether it's 'just' an information repository. I can't help but shake the feeling that the codex seems a bit... underwhelming. That said, most MMOs don't have any kind of codex at all, so it's already above that.

Read on after the break for more Fan Site Summit links, including a boatload of PvP articles, and the developer quotes.

Sith Progression, UI and more

This is going to be a long one. Not only do I have two weeks of official updates to catch up on (due to being away over the Easter weekend), but last week lots of sites started posting previews out of the Fan Site Summit. And then there's a lot of developer quotes on the official forums too. So sit back and enjoy the, euhm, read.

There are three Friday updates from the past two weeks; two last Friday and one the week before. Last Friday BioWare released a Sith Warrior progression video (similar to the Jedi Knight one a while back) as well as a BioWare blog entry talking about designing the UI. And the third update revealed the coming release of a new Star Wars: The Old Republic novel. But I'll start with the video; here's the official news:

In Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, your character advances through the ranks, gaining experience, growing in power, and reaping the rewards of more advanced gear and skills.

Take a look at this Sith Warrior as he develops and amasses power in The Old Republic. While there are many paths to choose from, this example gives you a small glimpse of the armor and abilities a Sith Warrior can claim as he pursues his own destiny.

Join the discussion on the Forums, or leave us a comment below!

To be honest I'm not really that interested in the Sith Warrior (anymore) and none of the appearances really tickle my fancy. But I'm sure that it's nice for those who are looking forward to the class.

I'll put the rest of the official updates after the break, in part because my responses to them will probably get a tad rant-y. Also continue on after the break for the Fan Site Summit previews as well as the developer quotes.

BioWare Blog: Advanced Classes Update

After all the excitement of the UK Community Event, this last Friday BioWare had an update about the advanced classes for us. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller takes us through skill trees, class roles, and changes they've made recently to the advanced classes and why. It's a fairly lengthy and interesting (I thought) blog post, but what I found particularly interesting was getting a glimpse of how they use metrics. here's a bit from the full blog post:

Here is a movement heatmap and death details for a sub area on Ord Mantell, from an earlier test. This exposed, shall we say ‘survivability issues’ for Smugglers on their class quest at early levels. That’s since been corrected!

We also use these heatmaps to understand the flow of movement through an area, optimize maps and other guidance systems and identify potential locations for special content such as datacrons or unique enemies, which are specifically designed to reward explorers that go off the beaten path.

Quite interesting stuff. Don't miss out on the rest of the blog post which includes details on recent changes to the advanced classes (Troopers and Bounty Hunters can now also fulfill healing roles, Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior has a viable single-saber damage role, Inquisitor and Consular get a tank spec, etc) and some more details on how the skill trees work.

There's more from last week though, including a surprise mid-week update with a PAX East video, more from the UK community event and the weekly developer quotes.

Read them after the break.