Studio Insider: Combat Animation

Last Friday BioWare had a Studio Insider for us with a look at combat animations and a Q&A on PvP, and they had an update on their presence at Eurogamer Expo coming weekend.

The Studio Insider starts with Principal Lead Animator Mark How giving a description of the combat animations. Here's an excerpt:

Once we knew what our rules were for combat, the programmers and animators were able to create a Lightsaber clashing system that could predict the volleys of weapons fire and other attacks being thrown at the player from all directions, and have the player dynamically react to ‘block’ these attacks. Not only that, but we were able to keep this system active while players were deflecting directed attacks, engaged in melee combat or even running. Players may not even realize all the factors that are coming into play to visually represent the combat experience, but we believe it’s critical for making the player really feel fully engaged in the fight. Without these dynamics, the players would wind up locked in certain animations when they go to engage in a “Stock strike” or “Project,” and then the combat would really be failing to capture the feel of Star Wars; it would give the player the impression that they are watching the action rather than taking part in it for themselves.

Most of the article comes down to "we have an animation system", "we spend a while developing it" and "it's fairly complex" without going into detail about what system they actually have. It would've been interesting to learn exactly what they're doing to give combat a cinematic feel without giving players the sense that they're losing control of their characters. I also suspect that most players will never really notice the nuances of the animation system much (after the first few times of "hey, my guy blocked that blaster bolt with his lightsaber"), which is a pity.

After the break a quick look at the Q&A, the Eurogamer Expo news and the developer quotes.

Studio Insider: Crafting the Class Intros

This Friday BioWare had a Studio Insider for us in which Senior Video Editor Brian Arndt tells us about creating the class into videos. Here's an excerpt from the full post:

Well, we are all proudly working on a Star Wars video game, a lifelong dream of mine and probably all of the team. What does the player need to see first to know they are about to play a part in the Star Wars universe? You guessed it!

As a part of the BioWare Creative Services team, we get to spend all our time in The Old Republic filming and editing gameplay walkthroughs, character progression videos, taking screenshots and even creating the Timeline video series. We work around the clock to deliver these Friday updates for the community (and even read your forum posts to see what people are looking forward to seeing and try and get them in there!). It's exciting and exhausting but a lot of fun, and the team is super passionate and proud to be doing it. So how did we end up crafting the class intro video assets for in-game, you might ask?

The studio insider post shows the Sith Warrior intro (which, as I understand from the post, has been modified since) and part of the work-in-progress Smuggler intro.

It's interesting. I recall that from my hands-on I noted that I was missing exactly this. So I quite enjoyed reading this insider post and can't wait to see the ones for the classes I'm intending to play (though preferably not before actually playing the game... silly as it might sound I don't want to spoil the feeling of those first few moments).

The article also includes a Community Q&A on the sound design. And BioWare also made a post about their Comic-Con presence. That, a long video interview with Daniel Erickson and the Developer Quotes after the break.

Studio Insider: Combat Audio

I think that BioWare is probably keeping their information releases fairly low-key for a while until E3 where they'll obviously want to try and make a big splash again. As such Friday we got a Fan Friday with Studio Insider. And they uploaded a video of the Fan Site Summit so that we can all get jealous watching other people play the game.

The Studio Insider talks about the combat sound design, giving a bit of insight into how the sounds for The Old Republic are created. here's an excerpt from the full post:

One of the first things we do when beginning audio production on combat abilities is to give each class a distinctive aural character. We’ve discovered that a great way to establish a sonic palette for each class is to come up with one or two descriptive terms that capture the essence of what we’re trying to convey, and attempt to tune every sound to those terms. The Jedi classes are very “Zen” in nature, employing a lot of yellow, white, and blue visual effects – usually softer around the edges. For these, we want to convey ideas like “smooth” and “wavelike” in our audio. Because the Sith represent a more corrupt and “edgier” side of the force, we want the sounds associated with them to be more “rough.” Smugglers are “flashy”. Agents are “refined” and “sleek”.

The Studio Insider also contains a Q&A answering some art related questions. But that, and the Fan Friday update as well as the Summit video and Developer Quotes will be after the break.

Studio Insider: Environment Polish

Last Friday was another Fan Friday with the usual Studio Insider, the latter this time giving us a look at polishing the environments and why walls are important. Here's an excerpt from the text:

As you can imagine in The Old Republic, we have a lot of walls! You can see from the images here that any wall can undergo a lot of polish. We might start off by creating a very basic wall design with a simple texture, but as development progresses, we’ll often rework the assets involved. This can be as simple as reworking a texture, by altering the diffuse map, normal map, specular map, or any combination of the three in order to help make the wall stand out or blend into an environment. Sometimes, we may rebuild the asset from the ground up. For instance, sometimes our design team may decide that an area needs to be re-worked to look more high-tech. That means we may have to re-work our flat metal walls to add more panel work and tech ‘bits’, as seen in the images above and below.

The Studio Insider also contains the Community Q&A about classes and there's the Fan Friday itself. That as well as the developer quotes and a few other bits you can find after the break.

But before we get to that a quick note. Next weekend is the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, which I'll be spending helping my parents move to France. So I'll be away this Friday and won't be back until Wednesday, so Friday's update is going to be later (and I mean even later than this one was... call today's tardiness a measure to help you get used to next week's).

Fan Friday and PAX East 2011 Roundup

I so told myself that I would do the update post before the end of the weekend this time, in part because I knew that there was a lot more to report than usual and I knew that I wouldn't have time to do it all during my usual lunch-break at work (due to work being crazy busy these days too). But a well, here we are. Blame Dragon Age 2.

The official update this Friday wasn't that big; a Fan Friday with Studio Insider, but last week there was also a load of PAX East reports from various game website. In fact I still haven't sorted them out (lucky me my friends decided to postpone tonight's Lord of the Rings Online session until after the next update hits the EU servers, hopefully tomorrow). And there's a metric ton of developer posts, unsurprisingly mostly revolving around PAX East. So that's been keeping me busy writing this post.

But let's get to it. As I said Friday was a Fan Friday and Studio Insider day. The Fan Friday has the usual fan art and a couple of new forum avatars, as well as the following new pieces of concept art:

The Studio Insider on the other hand sees World Designer Jesse Sky explaining how they go about making the animations for the ingame cinematics. here's an excerpt:

To start off, the Animators get together with the Cinematic Designers to figure out what actions need to be recorded by the actors at the motion capture studio (you know, that place where people wear skin-tight suits with ping pong balls all over them). For this particular scene, we needed the player character to Force Push some guards away and slay a couple of Hutts. Each human’s action, from the player character thrusting his hand forward to the guards getting knocked to the ground, is then captured individually. You can’t exactly throw a human actor into a Jabba suit and expect to get a good result, so in this case the Hutts were animated by hand.

There are some crucial differences between motion captured animation and animating by hand. Motion capture is exactly what it sounds like: the actor's motion is captured using the suit and is translated into data that we can use to make our characters move. As a result, the animations we get are very natural and realistic. To animate something by hand means the animator will pose the character like they would an action figure. Essentially, we create a series of poses with a little help from the computer to smooth out the movement between poses.

Don't forget that you can click two of the images in the Studio Insider post to get a brief video on the animation in action (though I personally also would've liked to see the/a final result, which they didn't include).

The Studio Insider also includes a brief Q&A about Flashpoints, which we'll briefly look at after the break. There you'll also find links to lots of PAX East reports and a load of developer posts.

Studio Insider – Sith Temple

I was sick over the weekend. Though not sick enough to be unable to write blog entries (pretty much just a cold and a headache), I decided to be selfish and postpone writing the blog entry. The Friday update wasn't that meaty anyway, so you've not been missing out on much.

That's because Friday gave us another Fan Friday with Studio Insider. Altogether very information-light. So I'll just skip straight ahead to the Studio Insider (I'll look at the rest a bit more after).

In the Studio Insider Concept Artist Diego Almazan takes us step-by-step through how he created concept art for a "Sith Temple". Here's an excerpt:

After touching up the details a bit more, I added other patterns on the floor and overhang. I also adjusted the overall color to simplify the process as I continued, and to provide a more readable version for the environment team once the piece is complete.

You can see the rest of the process and the final result at the original page.

Read on after the break for the Community Q&A, the Fan Friday update and developer quotes.

Rumor: The Old Republic launching in September

As far as rumors go there isn't a lot of meat to this one. So it's good to remember that this is a rumor and likely to be false. This isn't an official release date announcement by any stretch of the imagination.

Anyway, website MCV is claiming that they have "development sources" saying that Star Wars: The Old Republic will release in September. Here it is in their own words:

BioWare's MMO will arrive later than some had expected, sources tell MCV

Long-awaited MMO Star Wars: Old Republic will be released worldwide this September, development sources have told MCV.

The date is later than many had predicted, with EA CEO John Riccitiello himself suggesting a year ago that a spring 2011 release was likely.

And that's really the entirety of the rumor; the rest of their article looks back at some other 'recent' news (such as EA Louse). It doesn't specify what their 'development sources' are or whether those would be sources that would know such a thing (it could be developers of a completely different company making a completely different game making an educated guess based on publicly available information as those are, technically, 'development sources' as well; heck I probably would've guessed September or October too).

After the break I'll look at two issues pointed out in the comments and handle some news noting that investors are being pessimistic towards SWTOR.

Jedi Immersion and Starship Creation

Bah. I had managed to finish reading through all the articles from over the holiday season and was well underway writing a post with all of them, including an enthusiastic "and just before the Friday update too", when I suddenly spot the Friday update in my RSS reader. And I had a funny image and everything, see:

No, that picture doesn't have anything to do with the rest of this post, but one doesn't need an excuse to post pictures of Darth Vader playing ice hockey against Master Chief.

Ah well, I'll just rewrite the bit before the break, insert the Friday Update, and we should be good to go. Luckily for me the Friday Update this day doesn't seem to be a very meaty one (though nice regardless).

That's because today is a Fan Friday. That means fan arts from the community (love that twi'lek dancer), fan fiction, new smilies and avatars for the forums, and in this case also an announcement that they'll be at PAX East beginning of March. Another nice thing though is that they're revealing some concept art of Dromund Kaas, Tatooine, and Belsavis:


You can get all the details at the official news post.

But these days with every Fan Friday they also include a Studio Insider post, a little behind-the-scenes look at what's going on with development, as well as a community Q&A. This time they give us an insider look at the creation of my favorite The Old Republic starship, the Imperial Agent's X-70B Phantom. Senior Concept Artist Ryan Dening and Senior Environment Artist Christopher Reeves talk us through the design and building of a starship. Here's an excerpt from the interior design:

The first step for the interior was to take the top view and design a floor plan. This was dream fulfillment for me because usually the interior and exterior designs of ships for games don't have to line up, or there is no interior at all. It was really fun to figure out where to put everything. For the first time, we were making these ships exist in real space and giving the players the experience of owning their own Starship. From the top down view, I sketched the room volumes over the exterior concept.

Now that I had my layout, I needed a style. I wanted to capture the exterior feel - sleek and advanced - but the writing for the agent required a living space where he/she could entertain important guests and charm possible lovers. Once again, rough sketches were done and reviewed.

Charm possible lovers? Ooh, I'm liking that. And as I said, this starship is definitely my favorite, sleek and stylish. With this and with all the good information on the Jedi Consular (see below the break) I'm becoming more and more certain that I'll play them both. Which is good, as it gives me one on each side (Republic and Empire).

The Studio Insider is closed off with a number of community questions and (developer) answers. Here's one such:

Q: Will there be specific quests and/or chains within the class quests for Advanced Classes? (asked by ROFLBATLECOPTER)

Advanced Classes do not have a direct impact on quests or storyline. They obviously have a huge impact on your character’s progression and abilities in addition to the weapons and armor you are allowed to use. Rest assured that, this being a BioWare game, there will be plenty of opportunities to make significant and impactful decisions throughout the course of each Class story. So much so that I suspect many of you will want to play individual classes more than once.

Read the rest of the questions as well as the entire description on the starship creation at the official Studio Insider post.

So far for the official Friday Update today. After the break I'll be handling a whole lot of articles from over the holiday period so that I'm officially caught up again. This includes preview articles of journalists having extended (some six hours or so) play experience with the game, a number of interviews, and a lot of developer quotes from the last week or so. So continue on after the break to read them all.

2011

2011. The year that Star Wars: The Old Republic (is said to) launch.

Over two years we've followed this game and by the time it does it will be (at least) two-and-a-half. But the time is definitely getting closer. Will it be worth the wait? We can only hope.

I've been back from vacation for nearly a week now, but am still in the progress of catching up with all the news (both general game news and SWTOR-specific), so it'll take a bit before I've updated this blog to be up-to-date with everything. It seems that over the last few weeks a number of game sites published their hands-on experience with the game and I'll post it all here... once I've had a chance to read it all.

Next to reading news I've been busy with a number of other things as well; catching up on my tv shows, catching up with my friends in Lord of the Rings Online, enjoying my gifts (I got the last two campaigns for Guild Wars; Factions and Nightfall, as well as book 13 of The Wheel of Time series) and I got invited to the Rift beta last weekend (it's pretty much as I expected: very solidly put together, very standard MMO design I've seen a dozen times before, Rifts quickly lose their appeal to me and even become frustrating as they interfere with the rest of the game). But I promise I'll catch up.

For now, let me just post the news from the official website from the last few weeks (i.e. the Friday updates). Articles from other sites I'll hopefully be able to post later this week.

Though I usually try to put the official news before the break, since there's a fair bit of it now read after the break for a Deceived excerpt, a Fan Friday with Studio Insider, more information on the Trooper, a developer blog post on cinematic design, and new Holonet biographies.

Studio Insider - Flesh Raiders

And again I'm a few days late. It's starting to become a habit. In part that's because this Friday was pretty much just a Fan Friday and I don't find those to be that interesting (still good to have them, but I'm allowed to not find them interesting).

The other part of it is that last week my NCsoft (i.e. Guild Wars) account got "permanently blocked". Apparently some unauthorized person accessed my account and NCsoft decided to block it to prevent "further damage". Which, in turn, had me fretting for a few days what damage might be done while I was trying to sort things out and get access to my account again. (Turns out no damage whatsoever from what I can tell). Anyway.

So, Fan Friday. It seems that they decided to split the "Developer Corner" out of the Fan Friday and give it its own thing, called "Studio Insider". Though I think I'll continue to list those under "fan" still for now (after all I pretty much added that label purely for the developer corner section).

The Fan Friday has the usual with community images, fan fiction, and Halloween costumes (ok, so that's not that usual). They also add a bunch of new wallpapers from the Timeline videos:


There's also a bunch of new Star Wars smilies, really making me think "way too much". Pretty soon people will be able to make posts entirely in pictograms and still make sense. I'm sure we can already pretty much tell the entire Star Wars saga in "C3PO talks to the Ewoks"-style (just replacing sounds with images).

There's also a bunch of new forum avatars based on characters in the Biography section of the HoloNet. Which, in my opinion, is missing the whole point of avatars a little bit as aren't they supposed to represent the player? In the same way that we know we won't be able to play General Garza it doesn't make sense to use the character as a forum avatar. But then, what do I know... people'll do whatever.

As usual the more interesting part of the Fan Friday is the ex-Developer Corner, now-Studio Insider where this time they have a step-by-step breakdown of the concept art generation for the Flesh Raiders. Here's an excerpt:

At this point I was not exactly sure how far we wanted to stray from the original design, so in terms of the head and protrusions on the body I threw out some different ideas on what could be done. I tried not to spend too much time on the base, but wanted to give enough detail so there was a clear idea of what I have in mind. I even threw in a crazy wacky one to see if the team wanted something completely that deviated from the current Flesh Raider model.

Of course they go for the crazy one! I have not added any armor yet, so naturally this model has the most striking silhouette.

But the breakdown wasn't all. They also added a short Q&A. Continue reading after the break for a sample answer from the Q&A as well as a number of developer quotes and some help for those of you with children.

Fan Friday and Biographies

Last Friday BioWare made another "Fan Friday" post and updated the HoloNet with three more Biographies.

The Fan Friday consist of the usual fan art, polls, new smilies and avatars for the forums and a few new wallpapers:


But as usual the most interesting bit is the Developer Corner where this time Senior Concept Artist Ryan Dening talks us through making a piece of concept art of Kaas City:

The purpose of this concept was to revisit Kaas City. A lot of the work had been done earlier on, and we felt there were things we could do to make it so much cooler.

We already had a view of the city since it had been built in-game, but we wanted to integrate it into the surrounding landscape better and give the Imperial city its own architectural style. Also, we wanted to establish a stronger mood and define the Citadel better (main central building). I started with screenshots from the game to make sure I wasn't moving anything important and to make sure I captured the player’s view.

For inspiration I looked to the sketches of Coruscant by Ralph McQuarrie. Some of them have a dark gothic feel and I wanted to portray that in the Sith Empire's capital city. Clint Young had done an earlier concept of the Citadel, and I wanted to re-incorporate some elements from his design. Our style for the Empire is very angular so I felt that should be reflected in their architecture, as well.


I went into the game and took screenshots of the view I wanted to capture looking out towards the Citadel.


I kept the front platform and the building to the left as I knew they were going to stay. I added in some perspective guides to help me keep everything in-line, and then I loosely blocked in some shapes and colors to get the overall composition.


In order to refine the shapes and designs, I began building up forms with highlights and shadows. I cut in some details for the foreground building on the left from an existing concept Clint had done, and started adding some finer details like windows for scale.


The finished concept. I filled out the lighting and continued to refine details. From here, individual elements can be broken out in more detail for the environment artists to build.

Get the entire Fan Friday update in the official post.

The second update this Friday was the addition of three new character to the HoloNet's Biographies section adding a renegade ex-Republic General, a disillusioned Republic diplomat, and a mysterious Imperial Spymaster. Here is the official news:

Meet more of the compelling characters you’ll interact with in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. New additions have been added to the Biographies section of the HoloNet!

This update includes profiles of some of the most enigmatic characters in The Old Republic Era: the renegade ex-Republic General, Bouris Ulgo; the disillusioned Republic diplomat, Diab Duin; and the mysterious Imperial Spymaster known only as “Keeper”.

If you haven’t visited the Biographies section in awhile, you’ll notice that a few companion characters have been added as well. There are still more to come, so check back regularly.

For those somewhat disappointed with the update Director of Marketing, Leo Olebe, made a post on the official forums:

Hi Folks!

I'm fairly sure that I'm the last person that you want to hear from, but I wanted to chime in and say that we love your enthusiasm for the game and ongoing support. I know that it can be frustrating when we don't reveal new, specific game system information. Remember, the story and lore of the game is very important, thus the steady stream of content that is focused on learning more about the galaxy that you will adventure in. As we've always said, when things are at a quality level where we are ready to reveal them, we will. We never want to promise something that we aren't ready to commit to.

I can tell you that we have some game system stuff coming up that I think you'll like. Yes that's a tease, but never fear - we "hear" you and want to provide you with lots of great info to chew on.

Leo

Can't wait to hear what game system stuff they've got coming up. Though I like reading about the backstory of the game as well.

EA Louse Dishes Dirt On Warhammer

It's quickly making the rounds online, but it seems that a blogger styling him(or her)self as "EA Louse" (in a wordplay on "EA Spouse" made a rather condemning post towards EA and, particularly, BioWare Mythic.

The truthfulness can, of course, be very much put into question. There is absolutely zero evidence that this isn't all just some made-up hoax. Though similarly there's little evidence to say that it's all false.

Either way the poster seems to have made the post in a rather disgruntled state, claiming to have found out that he (or she) will soon be fired in another round of layoffs come this November apparently. The poster comes across as an artist (possibly an animator) who worked on Warhammer Online and is now airing a whole list of grievances towards how the development of that project went.

You can read it all at the blog (as well as several posts made in the comments by the blogger). But for us the most relevant bits are where the poster talks about Star Wars: The Old Republic. And, according to the poster, it isn't pretty:

And Bioware? Don’t make me laugh. They’ve spent more money making the Old Republic than James Cameron spent on Avatar. Shit you not. More than $ 300 million! Can you believe that?

And you know what they’re most proud of? This is the kicker. They are most proud of the sound. No seriously. Something like a 20Gig installation, and most of it is voiceover work. That’s the best they have. The rest of the game is a joke. EA knows it and so does George Lucas,they’re panicking , and so most of Mythic has already been cannibalized to work in Austin on it because they can’t keep pushing back launch.

Old Republic will be one of the greatest failures in the history of MMOs from EA. Probably at the level of the Sims Online. We all know it too ……

Again, how much of it is true is anyone's guess at the moment. The poster could be telling the truth, the poster could be understating the truth, the poster could be making the whole thing up, heck the poster could quite possibly not work for EA at all and be some disturbed kid in a bid for fame.

If there is truth to it then there's a few things to remember. One, when people lose their job or are otherwise upset then things tend to look very grim and everything tends to look amplified in the negative direction. Secondly it's all a matter of perspective and the poster might be judging the thing completely wrong or completely misunderstanding the situation; the poster doesn't sound like someone very high up so can only guess at a lot of the motivations. And third, regarding SWTOR the poster probably doesn't have that much more inside knowledge than the rest of us (the poster isn't working on SWTOR directly and only gets things from hearsay and speculation within the company). It's certainly not unusual for game developers to move members from one team to another, particularly one that it very, very big and is very, very much in the spotlight. That doesn't mean that the project is in trouble. It's also quite possible that the poster is somewhat disgruntled over the MMO (s)he worked on not doing very well in the end and all attention now seeming to go to SWTOR; it might be some kind of vindication if SWTOR fails too ("see, it wasn't our fault but it was EA's fault").

Of coruse, all of that is speculation on my part. it's also possible that it's all true.

Well, at least apart from the part where he talks about how Sanya lost her job as she, in turn on her blog, points out that that wasn't quite how things went. Again, that could just be the difference of perception and speculation.

Either way, whether it is true or not, I am sure that this isn't the right way to air one's grievances however much people might be applauding the daring of making such a post now. I've got a feeling that EA's legal team isn't going to be happy regardless of whether it's true or not.

And regarding SWTOR nothing has really changed. The game could still be great, the game could still be terrible; we still won't know until the game is released and we're all playing it by the (potentially) millions. The only thing that has changed perhaps is that a few more people might be aware of the possibility that, despite all the marketing and hype around SWTOR, this game could actually be bad. But I could've told you that without such a blog post.

Take it how you wish. I'm labeling it as "rumor".


[link] to EA Louse's blog post.
[link] to Sanya's response to the blog post.

Developer Dispatch: Designing the Light Side

Today BioWare has a new video for us, a Developer Dispatch where the developers talk about designing the Jedi classes. But first, today is also a Fan Friday with community art, new forum icons, new wallpapers (from the Hope cinematic trailer) and new poll questions. The most interesting bit though is, as usual, the Developer Corner in which Senior Concept Artist Ryan Dening describes the process of creating a piece of concept art. In particular it's concept art for a Republic Capitol ship that needs to be able to measure up against the Empire's (Old Republic period) Star Destroyers. Here's an excerpt:

When creating this design, my major inspiration was drawn from the medical frigate and rebel transport; those ships are some of the coolest looking because of their odd shapes and 'greebles'. I tried exploring some ideas based on these, but incorporated smooth, cleaner looking shells that related to other ships we'd already designed. I also wanted to make sure this ship felt somewhat tied to the Endar Spire from KOTOR.

In the end, I think we got something that hits the notes we were going for and looks really cool modeled in the game.

I started with some rough thumbnail sketches (left side). Once we decided to make the ship bigger, they all felt too small or similar to existing ships (left side). I took some of the elements I liked and did a couple new designs that had the mass and feel we were hoping for. Ultimately, we went with the ship design highlighted in red (right side).

I think that the final concept design looks very interesting and I can definitely see that going up against a Star Destroyer. Though it does lack the... simplicity of a basic Star Destroyer it'll be quite interesting to see how this turns out when modeled in 3D. Anyway, read the entire Fan Friday at the official website.

But as said, today also gives us a new Developer Dispatch video. Here is the official news:

Guided by the Light Side of the Force, the Jedi are the ultimate defenders of peace, justice, and the Galactic Republic. The developers of Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ are taking great care to ensure that Players can experience the classical Jedi fantasy represented in the films by such iconic characters as Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu, and Yoda.

At the same time, choice is at the heart of The Old Republic and Players can also explore many other ways they can take their Jedi characters. Whether that means walking the path of the Dark Side like Anakin Skywalker or simply adopting a unique combination of fighting styles, a variety of options will be available.

Watch Developer Dispatch: Designing the Light Side, and learn about the process involved in creating the Jedi classes for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

I can't say that I agree with all the choices that BioWare has made for the classes, particularly the Jedi classes. One of the problems I find myself facing is that I'm often caught between the type of story a class tells and the kind of gameplay a class has; either I don't like the kind of story the class seems it will tell and do like the kind of gameplay it has, or I don't like the kind of gameplay it has and do like the kind of story. I'm hoping that I can make a Consular (whose kind of story I do like) that doesn't use a double-bladed lightsaber (a kind of weapon I detest and wish that BioWare had kept it just to the dark side) and doesn't focus too much on healing either (as I don't like playing pure healers). Even so the dispatch was quite nice to see and it did make me more excited about the Jedi classes and stories.

The video should be available for download later today (it isn't yet as of this writing). But you can already watch it on the website.

Speaking of videos and staying strictly on the Republic side, earlier this week Machinima had an exclusive smuggler trailer video. Check it out:


The video shows what looks to be a peek at the Smuggler's stealth gameplay as well as what looks to be a Wookiee companion (no surprise there). And I kinda have to laugh at the Smuggler mentioning that he has the best ship, considering that all class ships are supposedly equal in abilities (same weapons, same speed, same maneuverability, etc). Though maybe it's for a large part self-deception on the side of the Smuggler. A well, it's a nice video.

And that's it for now.


[link] to Smuggler trailer at YouTube (from Machinima).

Starships and Advanced Classes

Running a bit behind on the updates (both from Gamescom and last Friday's update). Some of the news that came out of Gamescom and was confirmed in the Friday update pretty much drained my enthusiasm for SWTOR. But I'll get to that.

First of the two Friday updates we got is something we pretty much already had: two of the starships players will be able to get in The Old Republic (for the Jedi and Sith classes respectively), just now officially announced and on the HoloNet. Here's the official news:

Whether you’re looking to dominate the galaxy in the name of the Empire or rescue it from darkness as part of the Republic, you won’t get very far without a starship. In Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, your starship will be your base of operations, and it might even be your best friend. Ship models are specially designed to match the needs and tastes of each of the class types, so even though all the starships are outfitted for traveling the galaxy, each has its own character.

Study the style and specifications of the various Starships by accessing the HoloNet now!

The starship pages contain a short description, some concept art and screenshots, and a video of the interior (which had already been released at E3). At the very least they could've thrown another ship in there and give us something new. But oh well.

The second Friday update is a Fan Friday update showing the usual fan art (with some nice images in there) and such. It includes a piece of concept art from the developers and shows five new forum avatars that people can use in the forums.

The most interesting part of the update though is, from the Developer Corner, the reveal of all the names for all the advanced classes along with a three-point list for each of their specialization. Let me copy it here:

Trooper Commando Heavy Blaster Cannon Grenades Ranged DPS Vanguard Blaster Rifle Energy Shields and Defense Tank Smuggler Scoundrel Blaster ‘Shot Gun’ Stealth / Medicine Burst ranged damage or Healing Gunslinger Dual Pistols Quickdraw / Fast Attacks Ranged DPS Jedi Knight Jedi Sentinel Dual Wield Saber Saber fighting specialist Melee DPS Jedi Guardian Single Saber / Heavy Armor Leadership / Party Buffs Tank Jedi Consular Jedi Shadow Double Bladed Saber Stealth Burst melee damage Jedi Wizard Single Saber Powerful Telekinesis / Healing Ranged Control / Damage or Healing

Bounty Hunter Powertech Flamethrower Defense / Energy Shields Tank Mercenary Dual Wield Guns Missiles Ranged DPS Sith Warrior Sith Juggernaut Single Saber / Heavy Armor Fear and Darkside Auras Tank Sith Marauder Dual Wield Sabers / Armor Saber fighting specialist Melee DPS Imperial Agent Operative Blaster Rifle / Energy Blade Stealth Burst Ranged damage Sniper Sniper Rifle Cover, Ambush, Orbital Strikes Ranged DPS Sith Inquisitor Sith Sorcerer Single Saber Force Lightning / Force Drain Ranged DPS or Healer Sith Assassin Double Bladed Saber Stealth Burst Melee DPS

To say that people are unhappy with some of the names is an understatement. Particular "Jedi Wizard" is drawing a lot of ire. In fact the first thing anyone who sees that list tends to say can be best summed up as "WTF, Wizard? Are they serious?" Of all the names listed everyone I've talked to (without mentioning anything in advance) singles out "Wizard" is seeming an extremely poor fit.

In fact, I don't think I've heard anyone say that they think that it's the best possible name; the closest anyone defending BioWare here will come is saying something like "it's just a name". It might be just a name, but it's a name that anyone who wants to play the class will be referred to for as long as they play the game. It seems so incredibly ill-fitting for Star Wars (and in particular for Jedi) that all it can do is constantly sour the experience playing. It does the exact opposite of making you feel like a Jedi and instead calls to mind settings like Warcraft, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, casting fireballs and teleporting and turning people into sheep.

In fact, ever since the announcement of that name I've got this recurring thought of Luke waking up in Ben Kenobi's cave with the old man hovering over him saying "you're a wizard, Luke". He then goes off to the school for Jedis and Wizardry under the tutelage of Professor Yodalore where, together with his friends Herleiame and Han Weaslo he fights the evil Lord Volpatine and his Darth Eaters. And don't get me started on Chewbacca in this nightmare. Wizard indeed.

Those defending the name say that the word "wizard" has actually been used in the movies and thus is part of canon. They're referring to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in which Uncle Own says "That wizard is just a crazy old man" about Old Ben Kenobi. People have already pointed out that this is said in derision, but I think it's more than that. To me that sentence shows Owen's complete and utter ignorance as to what a Jedi is by calling Obi-Wan something he's exactly not. The rest of the movie then lifts Luke out of the ignorance of his upbringing (represented by his aunt and uncle) as he discovers what a Jedi really is.

It would be utter irony if BioWare's designers show such utter ignorance as to what a Jedi is by adopting that exact name. And that's rather worrying for the rest of the game as well; if they get this so incredibly wrong then what else, something that's possibly of much larger consequence, will they get wrong?

The only ray of hope here is, as the news article mentions: "Please be aware that since the specific class details are still under development, the information provided below may be subject to change." If there's any chance at all of BioWare ever listening to the reactions of its fanbase, then they will indeed revise the name as the rage on the forums over this is quite strong. If they don't listen to this, then I don't think they'll ever listen to anything the community says. And numerous suggestions for a better name have been made (my personal favorites being "Sage" and "Mystic"), though at this point pretty much anything is better.

And though I'm singling out Wizard as, by far, the worst offender in non Star Wars sounding names it's certainly not the only one. Other that have drawn ire include Sorcerer (though, while I'm not enthusiastic about it, I think there might be a bit more precedent for it being used by certain Sith), Shadow (yeah, Consulars are definitely getting the short end of the stick name-wise) and Powertech (which indeed sounds also absolutely ridiculous).

The fear I have here as well, next to these names appearing in SWTOR, is that with these names apparently being approved for use it's just a step away from them becoming officially part of the lore. Thus letting the Star Wars franchise slip even further into mediocrity. Star Wars has always walked a precarious balance between science-fiction and swords-and-sorcery, but this would tip the balance too much.

Ignoring the names of the classes the rest of the list doesn't stem me very positive either. None of the classes sound particularly interesting to play to me. Much of that is just personal preference, but one worrying factor is how much healing is mentioned on the Republic side, while being mentioned hardly at all on the Empire side.

Anyway, I could go on with how much I disagree with SWTOR's bog-standard and seemingly ill-fitting game design. But then the game mechanics aren't why I was interested in this game in the first place. So I'll leave it at that and pray that they see sense and rename the Jedi Wizard at least.

I also hope to do a post later this week with a Gamescom round-up. There hasn't been that much news, but there have been a few articles and interviews (mostly Darth Hater has a lot of interviews). Just need to get them all together in a readable format.

The Old Republic at Comic-Con: Space Combat Confirmed

The last couple of days Comic-Con was held in San Diego and BioWare was there with The Old Republic. In particular they held a panel where they talked about multiplayer storytelling in The Old Republic, during which they confirmed that there will be space combat in The Old Republic (and not much else beyond that). But we'll get to that in a bit.

First we also had a Friday update. This Friday was a Fan Friday, but we also got the first chapter of the Fatal Alliance novel:

“Everything I have seen confirms my worst fears.”

Initially revealed last December, Star Wars™: The Old Republic™: Fatal Alliance has hit the shelves! Written by bestselling author Sean Williams and published by Del Rey Books, this novel takes place only a few years after the Sacking of Coruscant.

When a Smuggler discovers the legacy of a lost world onboard a derelict starship, a dangerous secret is brought to life. Allegiances shift as Jedi, Sith, Republic Troopers, and Imperial Agents maneuver for political power and personal gain. Ultimately, enemies must put aside their distrust to defend the galaxy against a threat of unthinkable proportions.

As an exclusive to The Old Republic Community, read the first chapter of Fatal Alliance before you head out to your local bookstore to pick up your copy!

Do people actually still "head out" to their local bookstore? I always just buy all my books online. Anyway, read the first chapter at the official website.

Then there is the Fan Friday update, with more amazing fan art and such to explore (which I'll leave to you at the link) as well as new forum avatars (from the various Timeline updates), wallpapers (from the Hope cinematic; though they're in rather awkward resolutions as there's no 16:10 widescreen) and polls. Then there's the Developer Corner, which I always find the most interesting part of the Fan Friday updates:

Developer Corner

We worked with The Old Republic developers to get you a first-hand look at game content that is currently in production.

The Cathar are among the many species you may come across in your travels through the galaxy. They are known for being strong, effective fighters, and are considered unique for their feline features and personality attributes.

So, no real surprise there, there are Cathar in The Old Republic. Of course the question remains whether they're a player species (and which class/classes will be able to play them).

And then there's Comic-Con. It's been going all around the net (for example here and here), but it's been confirmed that The Old Republic will have space combat. At the start of the "Beyond Solo: Crafting the Multiplayer Story in Star Wars: The Old Republic" panel that they held they confirmed as much. But they didn't go into any details, just saying that more details would be revealed in the next issue of PC Gamer (US). Shortly after Sean Dahlberg posted the following message on the forums:

First, thank you to all of you who participated in our Comic-Con Reveal mission! While we didn't quite make the numbers, we definitely saw how excited the community is about this and how everyone came together. After all of that, there's no way we could hold back with our special reveal at Comic-Con!

If you’ve been following the news coming out of the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ panel at Comic-Con International, you’ve heard the announcement that we will indeed have Space Combat as part of the TOR experience! But what does that mean? Space combat is an alternative gameplay experience to the primary game of storytelling, questing, and ground-based combat. In space combat, you fly your personal ship to various “hot spots” on your galaxy map. From there, you will blast your way through asteroid fields, enemy fighters, frigates, destroyers, and a variety of other obstacles that will evoke memories of some of the great Star Wars™ space battles.

To learn more, pick up the October 2010 edition of PC Gamer which hits newsstands starting August 17th for screenshots and an exclusive interview or check back with us in the weeks to come.

Check out the cover of PC Gamer's October edition here:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/07/23/st...led-in-pcg-us/

And then a little later the following:

While there are some (okay, many) details I can't divulge at this time, I will say that with the entire game we're trying to make something that is fun, entertaining, and that emulates the action-packed combat and experiences seen in Star Wars.

I must say that the news surprises me. Generally speaking it tend to be a bad sign when developers try to focus on too many gameplay mechanics at once. You end up with two half games instead of one full game where one half isn't as good as the other half. Just look at Star Trek Online (which also had ground combat and space combat right off the bat and neither really seems to be quite there with the ground combat generally considered worse than the space combat). It's developers spreading themselves too thin and I wasn't expecting BioWare to take that same risk.

The one point of hope in that though is that they clearly seem to see it as something extra, something a bit outside the 'normal' game. The question with that is whether people are really going to be satisfied with that (is it going to be more of a 'dungeon' type thing and is that enough for people or do people really want deeply integrated space combat instead). But I must say that the whole idea of space combat never thrilled me to begin with (the 'space' part interests me, the 'combat' part not so much) so I can't really answer that.

And then there's of course one thing to keep in mind as well. Since they haven't detailed exactly what "space combat" is it might not be the X-Wing type combat that people seem to be envisioning everytime they mention space combat, but could be more something like in the first KotOR where you sit in a cockpit and shoot some ships flying by.

But I guess we'll see in due time (as in a couple of weeks when the issue of PC Gamer hits US retail stands and thus likely the Internet as well).

For the panel itself there's the article GameSpot wrote up on it. But it's probably better to just look at a 50-minute video of the panel itself:


There's some nice details in there. They explain the difference between class quests, world quests, flashpoints and world arcs a bit better. They talk about how the storylines of the two factions touch and yet are still different. They reveal how you get dark/light side points for your own choices and not for what the group ends up doing. They talk a bit about customizing your companions(' gear). And they confirm that player species are restricted by class.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of GameSpot videos, last week I neglected to post GameSpot's video about Composing the Music of The Old Republic. While not quite as nice as BioWare's video of last week (in my opinion), it's still a nice watch:


And that's it for now.

E3 2010, Beta Rumors and Deceived Excerpt

Over the past week, and since my last post, three things have happened; more previews and articles and such have surfaced out of TOR's E3 presence, Paul S. Kemp posted an excerpt from his TOR-related "Deceived" Star Wars novel, and rumors that the TOR beta is about to start this weekend have started.

Let's start with the stuff you're probably least interested in after that introduction: E3. In fact, I'll start with something you've probably already seen (for one because I already posted Voodoo Extreme's version of it); the video of IGN's "Live Demo". Note that this isn't a demo at all but rather a video interview with James Ohlen taken live during E3:


Meanwhile the site MMORPG.com has a hands on with the Smuggler. Here's an excerpt from their article, though note that the article contains some spoilers fir the Smuggler's early class story:

The cover interface was not bad. As soon as your target is selected, green images appear in the area around all of the potential cover spots you can occupy. Pick one and you will move to that spot. Once there, start shooting. There are a range of shots you can do, wit more powerful shots requiring a cooldown. The action moved pretty fast so I really only used my normal blaster attack and another more powerful blast which was able to knock NPCs down to about 50%.

MMORPG.com also has a video interview with Jake Neri (senior producer):


TOROCast, on the other hand, has a video interview with Brian Arndt. It's a nice interview since they focus more on his job instead of just getting the same information we already hear everywhere else (as they never talk about anything beyond that anyway):


Darth Hater on the other hand has a rather long Q&A podcast with the Darth Hater staff who got to play the game during E3. In it listeners could ask them questions about their experiences. It's quite informative:

Download Darth Hater podcast​​​​​
Kotaku was also at E3 and also got to play the Smuggler, of which they wrote an article. Not that the same warning as before goes; it contains some spoilers for the beginning of the Smuggler's story. Here's a spoiler-free excerpt:

Following a brief presentation of a couple trailers for The Old Republic, BioWare representatives led me to a small room lined with computers and asked me what kind of character I liked to play in an MMO. Six of the game's playable classes were available to play, with the two Jedi classes absent for tweaking reasons.

I answered rogue, and was escorted to a PC where a sleek and dangerous looking Twi'lek female smuggler awaited my input.

The basic controls are that of any other modern MMO game. You move with the W-A-S_D keys, the space bar jumps, and the number keys are used to activate various skills located on the hot bar at the bottom of the screen.

Meanwhile IGN has an article where they look at the MMOs of E3 2010. There isn't a lot on The Old Republic (or any MMO in depth) in there. In fact, let me quote all that they say on TOR:

Meanwhile, Star Wars: The Old Republic – arguably the most hotly anticipated MMO for 2011 – simply failed to shine. The story and conversation options were interesting and cool, and the graphics were decent enough, but combat, at least in those early stages, felt rather familiar. Of course, TOR and FFXIV are both many months away from release, and have very talented developers working on them, so we hope, if not expect, that these kinds of issues will be addressed before the games hit our hard-drives.

And I think that pretty much wraps up E3 for now.

Over on his blog author Paul S. Kemp posted an excerpt from Deceived, his upcoming Star Wars novel with ties to The Old Republic. As you read it you might find it very familiar, as it describes (part of) the events of the first cinematic trailer: Deceived. Here's an excerpt from his excerpt:

Ahead, he saw the four towers surrounding the stacked tiers of the Jedi Temple, its ancient stone as orange as fire in the light of the setting sun. The civilians seemed to give it a wide berth, as if it were a holy place, rather than a place of sacrilege.

He would reduce it to rubble.

He walked toward it and fate walked beside him.

Statues of long-dead Jedi Masters lined the approach to the Temple’s enormous doorway. The setting sun stretched the statue’s tenebrous forms across the duracrete. He walked through the shadows and past them, noting some names: Odan Urr, Ooroo, Arca Jeth.

“You have been deceived,” he whispered to them. “Your time is past.”

Sounds like it'll be a nice novel.

And finally there's the beta rumors. As Massively reports yesterday people started posting that they received an invite for a The Old Republic test this weekend. Apparently reports are that 100-200 people received such an invite. Then when Sean Dahlberg responded he didn't confirm, but he didn't deny or lock the thread either. Here's his post:

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the information and it's definitely interesting that people are posting about our Game Testing Program. We don't have anything official to say at this moment but if you have any questions, please check out the Game Testing Program FAQ.

And a little later he posted again to reiterate what people are allowed to disclose and what not:

The Game Testing Agreement that was agreed upon (when signing up for game testing) states:

PERMITTED DISCLOSURES
1. The fact that there is a Game Program.
2. The fact that you are a member of the Game Program.

Outside of that, it is a violation of the agreement to do anything more such as posting images or screen captures of anything related to Game Testing that is private and confidential and not already publicly revealed by The Old Republic team.

All in all it's looking quite likely that the rumors are true. Though that doesn't necessarily mean that "beta" has started (BioWare has always referred to things as "Tests"). It's not that uncommon for MMOs to invite a small group of people into the closed Alpha or such, kind of extending the Friends & Family test. But either way it's another sign of TOR's progress, and that's a good thing.


[UPDATE] I had linked to an image which I've been asked to remove. So I did (and with my apologies).


[link] to live video interview with James Ohlen at IGN.
[link] to Smuggler hands article on at MMORPG.
[link] to video interview with Jake Neri at MMORPG.
[link] to video interview with Brian Arndt at Vimeo.
[link] to Q&A podcast at Darth Hater.
[link] to Smuggler hands on article at Kotaku.
[link] to "MMOs of E3 2010" article at IGN.
[link] to Deceived excerpt at Paul S. Kemp's blog.
[link] to Beta rumors at Massively.
[link] to Beta rumors at Darth Hater.

Rumor: Leaked Play Guide?

MMORPG.com are reporting that now defunct fan site Ithorians.com has pictures of what seems to be a play guide for Star Wars: The Old republic (most likely for some test version of the game). Whether this is real or some hoax is hard to confirm, but you can see the images yourself here:

There aren't a lot of surprises in the guide, mostly confirming fairly standard play mechanics. The only things of note are that it mentions that players can fill in a surname and that on death players respawn at a med center.

Fan Friday: Depth of Field

No, curtail your excitement. No need to check your clocks as it's still Thursday; you still have one more day of work before the weekend. But somehow the Fan Friday last week slipped through the cracks, so I'm reporting on it now.

As usual it has some fan art. There's some art by Colm that looks quite nice, though there's a little controversy on the forums because some feel that putting images together in Photoshop and recoloring them shouldn't get a spotlight. Personally I feel it looks much better than anything I could cook up in Photoshop; I think people are underestimating the amount of work and talent it takes to do such things. There's also a report on an unofficial April Fan Art Contest, where community members submit art for the rest of the community to vote on. And Ion-Silental was the winner.

As usual the most interesting part of the Fan Friday is the Developer Corner though, where we get a little sneak peak into what's in development. This time they have a brief video showcasing a conversation to demonstrate a depth of field effect (where things in the distance look a bit blurry).


They also make a brief note of the European Press Showcase that EA held in London, showing a couple of screenshots from the event (which we've already seen in the various articles):


And finally they added a couple of new avatars to the forums. :


Read the full Fan Friday on the official site and see you tomorrow for this week's Friday update.