Кога е PAX ?

Уау, екстра. Ако може и да им се вярва, то това ще е ММО-то на десетилетието.

The first class I was able to play was the trooper. She was a Zabrak, and immediately I recognized the voice of the female Commander Shepard, Jennifer Hale. She was having a conversation with her commanding officer, and a few seconds into the conversation the transport was shot at, presumably by Separatists. At this point, I'm not sure whether I missed the instructions because of the noise at the convention or those instruction were not said clearly. In either case, I had no idea what to do next, yet the transport was on fire, and I had to somehow get out.

The Sith inquisitor quest was a little more straightforward; some slugs were nesting in the temple, and I was tasked with taking out some of the eggs. Again, this character was a female Zabrak, although not voiced by Jennifer Hale. I did not recognize this character's voice actress, but I loved her red skin and the dark tattoo on her face. As Alyson Bridge, who was standing next to me, put it: "She looks ready to kick some !#@$." And she did.

The smuggler mission obviously had the most polish. The opening cinematic was great. In fact, I was so busy absorbing the cinematography that I missed most of was was being said. The camera angles and focus were beautiful. The facial animations and body language were precise and appropriate for the dialogue. I don't believe I need to mention the voice-over; BioWare has always been the master at finding VO talent. It definitely did not fail this time.

Warping and lag are probably the next areas that need a bit of improvement. I'm not sure where the host servers were, but I didn't expect there to be lag on these machines. I would like to preface this by saying the lag was not by any means game-breaking, but it was there and caused some visual bugs. The first bug was warping NPCs. There was one warp which made me smile a bit. There was a Separatist who was standing behind some crates firing at me while his friend ducked behind. The one standing could not seem to make up his mind whether he was sanding behind the crate or on top of it. There was no animation to indicate how he was climbing up or down. I can only assume this was because of latency. The next latency issue I noticed happened on both the inquisitor and trooper. There was a latency pause in the action as my character was drawing her weapon and animation did not quite finish correctly. For an extended period of time she looked as if she were holding an invisible weapon with the real one still strapped to her back.

There are so many things this game did right that I really don't have time to get into it all here. I will highlight a couple of my favorites and maybe some that people hadn't thought about before.

This is a bit out of the scope of this article, but I really, really liked the overhead map. The map was all blue with light blue lines running through it. The map showed the elevation of the land as well as the buildings in the area. I realized this is a small thing in comparison to the rest of the things I could cover, but it seems that some UI perks, such as an overhead map, are implemented only as an afterthought in some games. However, the BioWare team seems to have taken time to think about how the player will navigate the world.

I know there have been some complaints on the official forums about the running animations, but I am going to have to say that this does not apply to animation as a whole. The body language of the characters is superb. I am going to assume the team is still working on perfecting the facial expressions, but that aside, the hand gestures and the way the rest of body shifted with speech really captured the emotion of the character. I particularly noticed this in the smuggler. Just because of the way my smuggler carried herself, the roleplayer in me couldn't help but be confident and sarcastic. Originally, I had not planned on playing a smuggler, but after PAX, I may have changed my mind.

I know BioWare really shouldn't score points for this any more, but I have to mention the dialogue. I was stunned. The VO work was, of course, incredible, but so were the dialogue choices. Traditionally, BioWare games made it completely obvious that you were to choose one phrase to be good or choose another to be bad. I noticed, especially with the inquisitor dialogue, that it was not exactly that black and white. I loved it. I heard Daniel Erickson say in the booth that the team is really looking to find that gray path for the characters, which is a new thing for BioWare. If the inquisitor's dialogue is any indication of this, then the devs are definitely off in the right direction.

I will be honest: Star Wars: The Old Republic is not some messianic return or revolutionary take on MMO mechanics. However, it is a very solid, very polished MMORPG. In fact, the greatest thing SWTOR is doing is truly bringing the RPG back to the MMORPG. For that reason alone, I would play this game, but that's not the only thing. I spoke to Blaine Christine briefly in my interview about gameplay. He said, "First and foremost we want people to feel immersed in the world of Star Wars: The Old Republic." Based on this little taste of about an hour's worth of play time, I believe the designers have a good start, but I also believe they are going to need every minute until spring next year to get the game to a place where it is polished enough that I can completely feel that immersion.

What's the oldest profession? If you answered smuggling, then you're wrong, but you're totally on track for what we're going to cover in today's hands-on!
I spent a decent amount of time learning about the game's world, the game's combat and quest system, and how cover works for the smuggler. I also got to witness a bit of multiplayer combat, to get a feel for how the game works in a party.

Right off the bat, I felt quickly at home behind the controls. Why? Well, it was in no small part due to the fact that the game's design feels very much like World of Warcraft. Looking down to find a red health bar accompanied by a yellow energy bar, I might have mistaken the smuggler class for a rogue, if everything were a little more fantasy themed instead of futuristic.

Even the cover system -- the smuggler's signature ability -- played very much like going in and out of stealth. Cover reduces the damage your smuggler takes while simultaneously offering him or her more options via new skills which will only appear while in cover. Just as you may have predicted, your skill bar will slide up while the smuggler is in cover, revealing a whole new "stealth" er... "cover" hotbar.

Using skills consumes energy from the smuggler's bar, but energy is rebuilt over time. Much like those of the rogue, the cooldowns I dealt with were short, making their attacks rely on utilizing energy efficiently. During the demo, I got to play with three different attacks -- a normal rapid-fire blaster burst, a set of slow but powerful blaster bursts, and a flashbang to stun targets.

Right after entering the game, I was told to walk through the green laser-door in front of me. This see-through green panel denoted a "storyline instance" -- one that would allow only my party and myself to enter. I hit the panel, expecting a quick loading screen, but I was surprised to find myself passing right through it and into the next room. The instancing had occurred without me even realizing it. The only confirmation I had that I was in a special instance was the system notification of my instance ID in the bottom right corner.

Approaching my quest contact triggered a cut-scene, offering some exposition as to why I was there. My smuggler was delivering some "illegal" (I prefer the term "overpowered") weaponry to the planet and I was sealing the deal. Unfortunately (as these things can never go smoothly) the local resistance had taken the military base's AA guns. I couldn't leave without shutting down the targeting systems and disabling the control terminals.

While my choice of dialog was varied, it pretty much led me to the same conclusion: go out and fix the problem. I ran out of my instance and over to the next-door military base area, where I found a large number of resistance fighters milling about and "guarding" the area. (See: Farmable mobs.)

Combat was fun and exciting as I pushed shift to find cover spots (they'll pop up as green arrows in front of you) and I activated my cover skill to slip into cover. My character would then hide behind walls and barricades, taking pot shots when I felt the enemies weren't about to fire. While I loved the "cinematic feel" of the combat moments, there was one little problem that brought me out of the experience -- my enemies fired directly at me in cover, and their rounds would pierce walls. I'd still get shot and I'd still flinch from the damage (even though I was behind a wall) and that broke the immersion. Hopefully that's something that will be changed in future builds though, so it certainly doesn't worry me now. (Editor's Note: My problem here isn't that I'm taking damage from behind the wall, rather that the rounds clip the wall and the "hit" animation still plays while in cover. It's not the damage that's the problem, it's the animation. People seem to be confused about that.)

What makes me happy, however, is the automatic use of medipacks. (See: Health potions.) Should your character die from an incoming attack, a medipack will be automatically consumed to save you, should it not be on cooldown. This saves you from having to rapidly dive for your medipack key, or from the occasional bout of stupidity that we're all known to suffer from (i.e., not looking at your health bar).

I did find some gear while milling about, and you'll still find yourself looting corpses for stuff. Armor and weapons do affect your statistics, so don't think you're escaping the gear grind just by playing Star Wars.

After battling through the soldiers to reach my few objectives, I entered the control tower and disabled the main targeting system. With everything complete, I had a new pop-up on my screen: call my quest-giver via holo-com.

I clicked that button and my character pulled out a small holo-device -- the classic Star Wars telephone. A little hologram of my quest-giver appeared, and it triggered a cinematic dialogue sequence right then and there, advancing me to the next stage of the quest. I thought this feature was very cool, and it gave a seamless transition into the next quest phase. It's very much in the vein of Star Wars to use a device like this instead of hoofing it back to the quest-giver, and I really appreciated it.

Getting back to the quest-giver, however, was another story. I ran through the area that I had just cleared out like a madman on speed, getting shot but leading my pursuers back to the "town guards." They took care of my aggro, of course, and I jetted into my hangar bay instance again, to finalize this gun-running deal and get my ship off of this planet.

However, just as I went to find my contact, three resistance fighters jumped me from behind various ship parts in the hangar. I quickly dived behind the nearest wall and begun using my cover to fire back at them. Now, finally, after all this time, I felt like I was in a Star Wars movie.

I dealt with those thugs and quickly ran over to my contact, triggering a cut-scene where I pulled him up off of the floor. He was shot, but he was fine enough to stand and tell me that my ship had been stolen by a mutual acquaintance. Now I was stuck on this rock, and my smuggler wanted some tasty, tasty revenge. No one gets between me and the deal.

Final thoughts

You know, this demo has given me a taste of the good and the bad of SWTOR so far, and I'm actually quite pleased with that.

On the downside of the game, the combat system isn't revolutionary. Smuggler equals rogue at my current level, and even the innovative cover system felt, at times, like non-moving stealth. What peeved me most, and what I hope will be fixed before launch, is the fact that you still get shot while in cover. That's a big one for me.

The other downside? It's still an MMO. You'll still run into mobs milling about almost aimlessly, even though Bioware has taken care to give them a reason to be there. Things like that take you out of the whole experience.

On the upside? The conversation sequences, as you expect, are neat. While I was dropped in the middle of a storyline and had no clue what was going on, I still wanted to pummel that guy who stole my ship by the end of the experience. At times you still feel shoehorned into walking a certain path in the storyline (as I had to disable the AA guns to leave, or I had to go kill that guy to get my ship back) but I only got a small taste of what this game had to offer. I expect more choice in other circumstances.

And, of course, when all of this comes together, as it did in the hangar bay instance, the game feels as it should -- like an epic movie. That's what I'm looking for here. While the epic movie experience didn't permeate the entire gameplay session, it popped up enough that I felt satisfied.

Final final notes? This is still an early build. Things are still subject to change. For example, when I got to play it, the graphics looked way better than in the screenshots we've seen. The fidelity of the graphics was superb on these high-end settings, and they seem as they will scale well across many different types of systems while still looking good.

So, in short, don't get yourself super hyped about this game. It's not amazingly innovative or a complete genre changer. It's not re-inventing the wheel, but it is taking that wheel and giving it the gold plating it needs.

So like my last hands on article, I am just going to go through the list of things that stick out in my head from playing. I have a lot more juicy information this time around (I rode a speeder!) as I had become more comfortable with the game and the mechanics at this point. This time I played as the Bounty Hunter.

- I started out with my regular attack, the rocket launcher ability that we have all seen, as well as the flamethrower. I also had the ability which lets me “vent” the heat I build up from using my abilities. (If you don’t already know, the Bounty hunter has a heat gauge, the more you use your gadgets the closer to overheating you get, think of it like a reverse mana bar)

- It wasn’t 5 minutes into my game before Samm who was playing next to me went “Hey... is that you?” Sure enough we had bumped right into each other... /invite

- So we grouped together and decided we were going to take this on as a multiplayer game. We headed out and decided we were going to focus on my quests as a bounty hunter since he was playing the Imperial Agent and we already had a feel for his quests from Tuesday. I stopped to notice the level 37 Nautolan female NPC who was hanging out in the building we started in.

- Inside the same building as we were exiting, we noticed a terminal that let you bind yourself to it. We assume that using an ability, probably the “Call Shuttle” ability that is common to all classes, would teleport you back to that location with a really long cool down timer.

- I also saw a bounty terminal, which when I clicked on it gave me some text about a bounty I could do, and I could either take the bounty or pass on it. I passed.

- We went outside and approached a small hut that had someone who I was supposed to talk to in it for my main quest. Initially it had a big red barrier in front of it for Samm, but a green one for myself. After I walked into it however it then became blue for Samm, allowing him to come in behind me.

- It looks like main class story NPC’s that give you your main story quests might not let you engage in multiplayer dialogue, but from what we saw everything else did. When one player engages a conversation with an NPC that is multiplayer dialogue capable, a green circle appears around them on the ground, and a timer pops up for both players. Since Samm initiated the conversation, I had about a minute and a half to get to him and the NPC and right click the NPC to participate. I could have clicked the “x” in the countdown timer to discard it and let him go on without me, or he could click a button that lets him stop waiting for me and continue on with just him in the conversation.

- It looked like a random roll of the dice, but I don't think it was. We had seen stuff about “Social Points” being acquired while we played together, and we think that has an impact on your conversations.. perhaps giving a boost on your dice rolls.

- We went to the spaceport, as part of my quest. We fought our way into one of the hangers (Samm couldn’t go in because it was my quest, but once I went in it opened up for him to follow me) where my target was standing near his ship repairing it, and I engaged him in conversation. One of my options had “[Wound]” at the end of the sentence.. so of course I picked that dialogue choice and sure enough my character quick drew his gun after a tense stare down and shot the guy, knocking him down and wounding him a bit, this option was like a hybrid between normal conversation options, and the quicktime mouse events in Mass Effect

2. This gave me the JUST the edge I needed in the battle, because after I did that his henchmen appeared from the other side of the ship... but Samm was there hiding behind a bunch of boxes, and he popped out and distracted them from cover while I fired my rocket to push back down the main “boss”. Then one of the NPC’s started closing in on Samm and was about to nullify Samm’s cover.. so I ran over there as fast as I could and used my flame thrower to force them back a bit so Samm had more padding. I then turned around to check on the Boss who had just gotten up and started firing again, putting severe damage into me. I fired another rocket to keep him down as Samm finished off the henchmen. Now that they were gone Samm was able to throw me a bone with the boss and put a laser on him that would increase damage done to him by 20%. A few blaster shots later he was down.

- I looted his corpse and acquired a new blaster pistol that did more damage. I think I went from a gun that did 14-26 damage to one that did 16-30 damage. It was a bind on equip item. Also somewhere in between all of that I looted some new bracers which fancied my character up a little more and gave me some more armor. Later on in my play session I managed to score a much better chest piece. Taking my armor from like 8 armor all the way up to 26. While we are talking armor.. I noticed at one point in my character sheet there was a green bar that displayed my armor was 90%.. not sure what that means though, Samm thinks it could be durability. Also one of the armor slots looked like it could be for an eye piece or goggles. It was an image of a head with a robotic looking eye piece on, it wasn’t for a helmet because there was already a different slot for that.

- After finishing him off, Samm went and explored around in the other hanger, where he thinks your Player Ship might end up being. I went on looking around in the first hanger and thought “I wonder if I could climb that mountain and come out the other side”.. basically to get to the hanger we had to go through a building that tunneled through the mountain, so I wanted to be able to go over the mountain back to the other side. Sure enough I was able to.. but you wont be able to in the full game. It became clear that that will be a closed off area that we wont be able to get up to, because we could see the edge of the ocean and some of the trees were floating a bit. So by release expect that to be closed off. Either way we were able to do it, so there is no visual trickery going on to pretend that there is a big mountain. Samm ended up killing himself or something but I was too busy going back down the mountain to the ground. I noticed some falling damage but my character rolled in a cool way when I landed.

- We began to split up a little bit and explore the world. It was much larger than I thought it would be, and the rumour on the street is that this is one of the smallest of the planets. It took a little under an hour to roam from one end of Hutta to the next, but that was on pretty much a straight line with only a couple little side ventures. To cover every inch of the map, would take a pretty good chunk of time, and that's if you stayed outside and didn't go into any of the massive interior sections. It looks like the highest mobs just running around there were around level 7 or 8, so I would imagine you would be ready for other parts of the galaxy a little after reaching that level.

- Because we grouped up we were able to venture further in than if we were alone. We saw a few different creatures that were really fun to fight, and had some great animations. Some of the creatures knock down animations were a bit on the cartoony side however. There were also some larger mining robots that walked around on three legs which were fun to fight, but the best was the large Chemilizards, once you fire at them they would begin to charge at me, and I would then fire a rocket just in time to knock them out of the way. Think Jango Fett dodging the Reek in AOTC.

- Early on in our adventures I had found a NPC by a bunch of speeders, he had a purple icon above his head. I right clicked him and it said something along the lines of “Location stored..” I tried again and it said “No connecting routes..” I think you can see where this is going. Since we were grouped up and working together, we were able to cover a lot of ground, and Samm found a second Speeder Vendor with the same logo above his head. He tried to use it thinking he could ride.. but no dice. However he had not talked to the first NPC like I did... so I ran over there and BANG! A map of the area popped up with a line connecting from where I was with that NPC back to the original one, and clicking on it would cost me 20 credits. We all know what this is. I clicked on the location and I was off on my speeder.. it was on rails and moved pretty fast. I was able to look around and everything, and before you knew it I was back at the first NPC... so I rode it back again. I think that makes me the first and maybe only person outside of Bioware to ride a speeder!

- I noticed that in one of the major friendly areas there were a bunch of level 50 NPC’s, I got the gut feeling of “Okay, this must be the max level right now” that comes from my past MMO experience. Usually NPC’s in major cities, especially guards and important NPC’s tend to be at max level to prevent them from dieing easily or to allow them to be strong enough to defend the area from gankers. Really I am sure the max level for the game is still in the works, and even if they have one locked in it might be higher or lower than 50 for players. But its something worth thinking about.

- To finish our grand adventure (we probably could have stayed playing the game for another hour if we wanted, but we wanted to spend that time with some people from Bioware instead, which you will be seeing a couple more videos soon from that) we thought “Hey... lets go into Fa’anthra’s temple and see if we can take down a big fat Hutt!” We got there and knew it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park, and we would have to work together to make it through the level 7 characters with our lower level characters. The NPC’s at the entrance and inside seemed to be amped up a bit. They were taking cover which forced me to flush them out with the flamethrower while Samm focused on sniping from a distance and weakening the tougher tank type enemies.

- We got to the throne room and.. he wasn’t there. We could see what looks to be his chair but it was empty. I think Bioware removed him for this gameplay demo.. Darn. But that didn't stop us from heading to the elevator that we saw on the map. We were curious if we would finally get a loading screen from that. So we went there and it asked us where we wanted to go.. it gave us no options.. But Samm figured out that if he pressed the Space Bar it would show us our options anyways. So we went straight down to the bottom to a place called the Beasts Lair. No loading screens, we just popped down to that floor and we were there. I immediately pressed “m” to see what we might be dealing with, and ahead of us was a giant open cave like room.. so we ran in there guns blazing as it was crawling with large Chemilizards, there were (I believe they were called this atleast..) “Ancient Chemilizards” that looked kind of like the creature Obi-Wan rides in Revenge of the Sith. But it was at this point that we had to get off so we could make it in time for our interview.

- Samm played around with Armor and Weapon vendors, and also played around with something called a “Bazaar” which was what the Auction House terminals were called in SWG. I will let him go into those details on his article. He also found a blueprint vendor, well that's what I assume when he said “oh a blueprint vendor”...

- It appears all classes will have a revive ability, which lets you revive a fallen party member while out of combat.

- I was killing guys around a tree and noticed I was getting shot at from in the bushes of a tall tree, I looked around and saw an NPC standing on a big thick branch shooting at me.. so I fired my rocket to knock him off of it and he fell to the ground, so that I could rip at him from there. Not sure if it was a bug or intentional, but it was pretty sweet.

- Going in and out of instanced areas was again very seamless. Obviously no loading screens help with that but, I ALWAYS felt like I was in the MMO world and never like I was in my own personal instance (even though at times I was). This game gave me a feeling of “on the other side of that wall there could be something going on with other players”. This is good news for anyone who was hoping for that big living world feeling, which a lot of MMO’s have strayed from lately.

- Overall, this play session taught me that SWTOR really is an MMO, and not a single-player game. We were able to group together from the very start of the game and start adventuring together through quests and we could explore all over the place together. Let me assure all of you that this game is an MMO... I know there has been a lot of concern about that, and I think that most of those concerned people will be very satisfied once they get their hands on the game.

First, allow me to begin this write up where I started, playing the Trooper class. Right off the bat the Trooper starts in a walker with a superior officer of the Havoc Squad giving you a little background on what you are doing on Ord Mantell, you immediately jump right into the conversation wheel, I went with the cocky recruit on this play through. The first quest you receive is due to your walker being attacked; fires breaks out inside and you are put to work extinguishing them. It honestly took me a few minutes to notice the blinking fire extinguisher sitting on the wall, but once that was done, it was time to rock and roll.

Trooper Game Play

The Trooper’s play style is lots of little attacks with low damage dealt but can take a beating like you would not believe. I tested BioWare’s statement of “our players should feel heroic and be able to take on multiple targets at once, not just one” and boy did the Trooper take the hits. My Trooper stood up to six (Smuggler-esque) mobs as well as a combat droid with a ton of hit points, which took quite the beating from my Trooper. The key to the Trooper, as it is to any tank, is to watch your hit points, after my seven mob battle I jumped straight into another with a second droid, needless to say I didn’t last long. After dying as the Trooper and respawning I took notice to a health pack which returned probably about half of my health after one use, obviously including a lengthy cool down time.

All skills seemed to run on somewhat of a global cool down save for the Trooper’s Hammer Shots (the primary attack). This even at times seemed as if I was stopped by an over-heating issue.

The second attack was an explosive AOE grenade fired from his gun which required four ammo points. This leads me to the Troopers’ third ability, Fast Reload. Fast Reload quickly loads six ammo points into the chamber of the Trooper’s gun. Ammo points are required for the Trooper to use certain abilities like Fire Grenade. Fire Grenade did a decent amount of damage to the main target, where everyone around him seemed to take about half give or take a few points. And finally the most enjoyable attack of the trooper, Stock Strike, slamming a mob in the face with the butt of your rifle had some awesome enjoyment to it.

After the first few quests, I wanted to keep playing. Star Wars The Old Republic is addictive from the start. But, alas it was time to move on, I probably spent a good 30 minutes or so stomping around the beginning area of the game for the Trooper just killing mobs over and over again, and I had no problem with it, I enjoyed it.

Sith Inquisitor Game Play

After the Trooper it was time to try something a bit different, I stepped away and hopped into the role of the Sith Inquisitor, a completely different play style all together. The Sith Inquisitor boasts high damage force abilities at its start.

The introduction seemed much shorter and allowed you to jump directly into the game play. Right off the bat, you have your standard lightsaber attack, a lighting ball of doom, and Lighting Drain which is channeled. Immediately you notice the Inquisitor doing a boat load more damage than the Trooper did, which worries me for balancing issues, I did not die as an Inquisitor I was killing way too fast for anyone to get near me. Again I attempted testing BioWares statements of epic-awesomeness and it was indeed delivered yet again. I enjoyed dancing around Korriban and the first Sith Temple although; I was able to step away much easier from the Inquisitor and quickly moved on to the Smuggler.

Smuggler Game Play

Before I start the Smuggler I want everyone to know, that I did not have a lot of play time with it so my descriptions here may not be as in-depth as the Troopers. With that said, the one thing I went to do (and shared a laugh with Deb Shin) was check for all the fans of TOROcast, if ‘Gumby” was still in the game. And sure enough he is still there, proud and green. Something to note about “Gumby” is the reason I feel he shows is pretty green body is to depict to the player what his stance will be like when he is in cover mode. Since the Smuggler shared the same planet with the Trooper I probably took care of just as much as I did on the Trooper but in a much quicker fashion.

The Smuggler boasted very fast low damage abilities, as well as a stun here or there. Once in cover mode, which is where I assume the Smuggler belongs, his abilities become significantly stronger and you are able to take out mobs with ease.

I would like to apologize to BioWare for any doubts that I had ever had with the Smuggler, thinking the cover system was just some cheap stunt to add something innovative to the game. The cover system made the Smuggler that much more enjoyable to play. It added a completely different aspect to the game, however reminded me distinctly as if I were going to a stealth mode on my Rogue in World of Warcraft. Now before I get SWTOR rage spammed, let me explain a second what I mean. Going into the cover mode brings up a different ability bar (which all of us already know, I am aware) however what you do not know is the attacks while in cover mode seem to do a higher rate of damage.

And finally...

I’ve given you the basics of the SWTOR classes I played but what about the environment, what about the world, the character interaction, how things react, how the graphics look, etc. I am going to sum everything up VERY quickly. The graphics looks awesome, the player characters and NPCs look absolutely fantastic. I am really beginning to take a liking to the art style chosen for SWTOR. The amount of detail that has been put into the worlds is incredible, from the signs on the walls of Ord Mantell, to the detail of a Sith Lord’s tomb on Korriban, it all looks absolutely fantastic.

The worlds are open WoW style, where they are separated by zones, with seamless loading time between them all.

The audio in the game sounds awesome, classic blaster fire, great explosions, the dialogue, all of it was very clear and crisp.

If BioWare ever feels they are losing touch with their fans just toss up the first five quests of the game for each class to reignite the fire that once was.

I will admittedly say that before today’s play time, I have many times discussed with Musco about stepping completely away from TOROcast due to me feeling I want nothing more to do with the game. After today though, that statement has completely flipped flop. I could not and did not want to step away from the game. I wanted to continue on, I wanted to explore the world, and go on with my quests. I wanted what Jake Neri was talking about in the room and to sit down with 4 of my friends and beat the crap out of some giant robots, I wanted to do it all, PVP, visit my ship, punch a Wookie in the face, I am officially re-excited for SWTOR. I had so many questions I wanted to jump up and ask BioWare when Jake was going on in the first part of our demo, but I held back for the time being.

I personally got the "mmo feel" right off the bat.

The questgivers were in phased zones (some of them) but the minute I left a building or a story hub and set foot outside, it was wide-*** open.

The videos and commentary just don't properly translate how utterly massive the world felt. I saw other people running around all over the place. There were also alot of "social centers" (although they at the time were'nt active) Like taxi ports, mailbox looking things, interactive screens (bounty boards maybe?) as well as centralized quest hub areas where lots of players were congregating. Now keep in mind everyone was off in their own world swapping in and out of armor or trying /dance like stuff. But it felt like dalaran on a friday night, just alot prettier with about 1/50th of the lag (but it was on a cloed lan network, not sure where the game server was physically located).

If I got one feeling to put into words it was MASSIVE.

I understand what you're saying about the 3rd person single player ME2 factor, but I didnt get that sense in any way shape or form. It felt closer to Aion or WoW than mass effect as far as that goes. The zones were huge and open, but not so huge as to never see another player for 20minute run stretches.

The choice and dialogue systems do resemble ME and DA to an extreme degree though. They have said there are many options from extreme light to extreme dark, and not just dialogue wise. In wow you go here and kill x. From my experience in SWTOR you go here and you can do x, y, z, or a combination of them all arcing the story in different directions, yet all achieve the goal. Im afraid it's not going to get much more diverse than that. The dialogue system (if you didn't like the me/da version) will deffinatly not impress you, but I loved the moral choices and options presented. And they still have 7 months of polish left to put in place.

From what I've seen and played, this is the top of the food chain as far as quality mmo's I've seen. The only thing I saw that irked me was some animations and mobs getting stuck hopping on crates, going for cover, or getting killed and floating midair for 2-3 seconds.

Other than that it seemed more polished than many games that have been out for years.

I was at E3 and Pax. The impressions I got were very similar. I got to play on Korriban, Hutta, and briefly Ord Mantel.

Not only was combat very fast and seamless, the UI was very snappy and responsive (which for me at least is a make or break deal). You can sit down and feel comfortable right off the bat if your are an experienced WSAD player. The class I enjoyed the most hands down was the inquisitor, but im a sucker for the story. The powers were lacking at the lower levels and with no Area attacks, pulls were a bit more cautious than say, the BH where I had multiple forms of multi-enemy attacks. I really wanted to give the Agent a go, but by the time I finished with the BH, the line was so long I could has possibly starved to death trying to find the end of it.

I VERY much enjoyed it. Hutta was a nasty, seedy, jungle-like planet full of gas, obscured vision, and scum. The NPC's were all shady and shifty. It fit perfectly. You really got the feel that the empire and republic had very minimal presence there, and there were other forces at work. If you looked closely you could imagine how wonderful and lush the planet might have been at one time, but with the hutts in charge it had sunk into a cesspit of "scum and villiany" without doubt. Casinos, pleasure palaces, pubs, all were about.

The troopers story (what I got to see of it) was not nearly as inspired, but interesting and fun none the less. There is a particular feel to just flat out gunning mobs down like jessee ventura in predator. Overall it was imo fantastic. What the other guy said about some of the animations seeming stiff was true. There were some aspects that seemed "untweaked" like hand placement while running, leg animations, jumping, and strafing. One thing I did take special note of. Your Head.

Seriously. The players head turns and moves very very naturally. Not just when targeting. As you run by hostile npc's or even standing still, as aggro begins to build (and yes, it's not BOOM! ATTACK!, they notice you at certain ranges, get defensive, then as you get closer they assume a hostile stance, and then finally full out attack) your head will turn to focus on potential threats, you will look back and forth as if you are sizing up potential tagets, with those enemies that have taken notice of you being prioritized. There is also some stragey involved. Some enemies have knockdowns (at level 3-5ish) and will close in on you and attempt to surround you. You have to prioritize the deadliest and most likely to incapacitate you first, or you can find yourself sorely pressed very quickly.

With the BH I had no problem with packs of 3-4 but with the inquisitor it was a much different feel. The global cooldowns on the Inquisitors abilities seemed a bit longish, where many times I was standing around waiting on abilities to refresh, but most attacks from him were 1-2 shot kills.

The BH on the other hands was a flurry of pain. Blasters firing, rockets, and flamethrowers going off. You hardly noticed the cooldowns at all. The downside to the BH is heat buildup. Your weapons generate "heat" which in sustained combat must be vented through your armor. It was a unique mechainc and added a layer of priority and strategy.

The trooper (very brief experience) used what I can only compare to a WoW rage mechanic, just think ammo. The abilities had quick cooldowns, but they are ammo based. You have several quick reload type abilities and a channeled full reload which pretty much opens up even your heaviest attacks, but at increasing ammo cost. You could also self buff (similar to the agent's "Laze Target") powering up your weapon for increased damage at increased ammo expenditure cost. (That might not be right, but while charged up my weapon did seem to use ammo faster). If the troopers AC options have to choice to spec a pure dps role, I can see him being an aoe/single target dps beast down the road. Thinking Plasma Gatling gun or heavy assault rifle type class, but I didn't get that far (no one did).

Overall each class felt very unique and different. You simply could not play an inquisitor the same way as a BH, and vice versa.

I wish I had the opportunity to play a jedi knight, but I did'nt. The only thing I really missed out on was the smuggler/agent. I really wanted to play around with the cover mechanics, but once again, didnt get the chance.

I hope this helps ya get a second hand feel for how it was.

You want a TLDR version?

I loved it so f'in much I will be pre-ordering the collectors should they decide to release one (even though I swore after Aion I would never do that again) but after having seen the game and played it almost a year before it comes out, I can say with no reservations this game will be a resounding success. All the people estimating under 1mill subs and them struggling to get the numbers they need are GROSSLY underestimating BioWare, EA, and their marketing and sales potential.

Was it as polished as a 5 year old mmo that has undergone 1000 patches? Hell no. But to date it is the most polished, well done thing I have ever seen. If they released it right this second there is no mmo in the past 5 years that launched that even compares to the level of detail and polish already in game, and I'm including AoC, STO, Aion, etc in that statement. It felt above and beyond many games I have actually paid subscriptions for, that have been out for some time. People are worried about funding from EA especially with the APB fiasco. Don't worry about that at ALL. 2 things to remember. 1: This is EA/BW's flagship game. They are fully and totally committed to it, 300%. and 2: Ray Mazuyak is not only the CEO of BioWare, he is the VP of EA. He is the guy who makes those decisions to a large degree. And he is also a RABID starwars fan.

Is it going to kill WoW? Hell no. But watch out Blizzard, some serious no BS, dedicated, creative, gaming geniuses just moved into your neighbourhood, and you're not gonna run them off by stealing their **** like you did with WAR.

I played TOR at PAX and fell in love with it.

I felt [losing my faith in Star Wars] after the lackluster prequels drained any religious fervor I had for the franchise. Let's face it... George Lucas has lost touch with his own creation.

However, TOR has 100% rekindled my interest. The storyline created by Bioware is superior to almost everything from Lucas, and setting TOR in the Old Republic just makes me forget the Jar Jar carnival that was the beginning of the end for the SW Universe.

Ok, so about gameplay:

I got extensive testing with the following:

- Sith Inquisitor (my favorite right now)
- Sith Warrior
- Bounty Hunter

In my opinion, the game is shaping up very nicely. Combat is fast and exciting. Animations are fantastic. For example, with the BH, I enjoyed launching a missile into a group of enemy NPCs (doing AoE damage) and then running into the mob with blasters firing away. When I got close enough I’d unleash a flame thrower to finish them off. You can run around the mobs and your avatar’s torso turns with arms up and weapons firing. You can jump off a ledge onto unsuspecting mobs and rain death on them. When a mob climbs to a higher level, your character ‘looks’ up at them and when fighting, this very much resembles a scene from the films. Hard to explain but I got the feeling of fighting in a 3D space that I don’t usually get from MMOs. The ability to move and attack simultaneously with no interrupts is not unique to SWTOR, but man it was fun.

The starting environments are fantastic in detail. Canyons are detailed in shadows, crags, recesses, etc. The overall look is a much sharper looking game world than WoW (I have not played Cat so this may not be the case anymore). However, lighting, architecture and topography are stellar. SWTOR ran fluidly and this build looks more polished than the build I saw from E3. Voicework is the best I’ve heard hands down. I loved the interactive dialog and the ‘tree’. It has been stated that Bioware wants the player to feel powerful from the beginning. I can say I think the game succeeds here without question.

I was immediately sucked into Bioware’s class storylines. I can see on repeat plays skipping dialog. But I imagine the first 2-3 times playing through the same class, and making different decisions, most people will listen to every line. It’s like watching a movie and I was entranced. The writing is top notch.

The UI is intuitive and exact. No delay from keypress to action. I thought it felt perfect.

I'm not sure the game is going to be as popular as WoW, but I know KOTOR fans will eat it up. I do feel TOR is as accessible as WoW, but perhaps a little more hardcore and less whimsical (which is a good thing but a big reason I think WoW appeals to such a large and diverse player base).

The music, the action, the extremely well written quests all come together nicely in TOR. If there is a strong PvP game (and after talking to Daniel Erickson I think they know this) TOR is going to be very successful.

I got to play for about 45-50mins with a Bounty Hunter at level 3. Beforehand I was a bit sceptical because, well, it was only level 3 so i didn't expect much.
The UI is a lot like WoW as are the movements, so you can just sit down and instantly play the game without feeling unfamiliar or at a loss what to do or press. Of course being a sci-fi MMO and a new MMO they had the opportunity to have several improvements. Like the map gives a lot more detailed information, where important NPCs are, what their names are, what their purpose is (armor vendor, weapon vendor etc.) as well as having maps for inside buildings etc.
Character sheet, skills etc. are very much like WoW.

Graphics, though they are in the same sort of category as WoW's are definitely improved, a lot more crisp, high quality and the environment and textures have a lot more detail to them. Though character and equipment detail can be somewhat improved. (Though this was at level 3 so it could be that equipment detail gets a lot better at higher level stuff. NPCs looked very generic though).

Gameplay wise the first thing that really surprised me was that combat felt very smooth and right/nice. You don't really notice it until you get to play but it's smooth, you're always busy fighting and not just standing still waiting on or casting skills, even with the 3 abilities I had. I think a large part of this is due to the fact several abilities can be fired while moving. Out of my three combat abilities (blaster pistol burst, wrist rocket, flamethrower) two could be used while moving. So you'd generally run towards a group, shoot your wrist rocket knocking them back and off their feet, while still running towards them you'd be spraying them with blaster fire, then when you're close cover them in fire with your flamethrower. At the same time the AI runs for cover, like they might run back into the building and hide in there, hide behind cover, or just get some more range on you. You're also always fighting multiple enemies at once which does seem to make a lot of difference in gameplay, you're targeting the middle ones for AOE, feel outnumbered, etc.
In short, Combat felt very dynamic and fluid.

As cliché as it is the feature that really made the game standout from WoW was... yes... story. You still have the standard MMO go and kill X of Y. But I found that WoW had a total random nonsense story which covered 1 page and was about as interesting to look at as a turd. The quality voice over and a short to the point background story to even a mundane quest at least makes it feel more real and immersive. But what supported this even more is the fact that you have to make conversation choices. And even though these side quests might not have the most unique choices (yes ill help cause im nice, yes ill help but what do i get out of it, f- you ill just kill you) at least you got to spin the story your way and it made it feel like it was your character's game and not just a static game that's exactly the same for everyone. It made it feel less like a chore and much more a fun part of the game you were going through. I'm convinced that with the whole unique class story element leveling different alts (different classes) will be a lot more fun as well.

Besides normal kill quests there were also somewhat more interesting quests where your choices slightly matter more as well. For instance I was presented with a quest where this mother was asking for my help. Her son was to go to the Sith Academy to train to become a Sith but her husband took him away cause he didn't agree. She wants you to get him back to him. You can can basically just be a nice guy and accept the quest, get more credits out of her or you wont'do it, or not really bother with the quest. (Light Side / Dark Side points accordingly) When you find the dad he tells you he went to the Sith Academy himself but it was a horrible place to be at, where you either rise to power or you die trying and he wanted to shield his son from that. You get to either let him go and tell the mother that you pursued them but they got away to their starship and fled, you get to just let them go if they pay you credits, or you kill the dad and take the son back. Because it ties into the Sith mentality and the nature of the Sith Academy (world story) it's just a bit more interesting than the totally generic stuff you generally encounter.

You also have pretty generic quests but they tie into the overall story of the region you are questing in. Like conflicts with gangs you are introduced to, who the leaders are, what sort of problems they're having, the hutt gangsters that want to get rid of them and so on. So even though you're just killing X of Y you still do it in a larger context tying into what's happening in that particular area/region. And as you progress this story slowly expands and you start becoming part of it.
It's really a lot like KOTOR in that respect really.

Other tidbits I noticed;
Bind Points - Each town seemed to have a place you could bind at. This seemed very similar to DAoC's bindstone system, which I prefer over World of Warcraft's Corpse Run. I didn't die but I assume it works the same. (Speculation If you die you get returned to your bind point, I don't know what you lose (like xp / durability) or get some sort of temp penalty but at least you are in control of your character in a safe location. And can decide to go back to where you were, or if you were finished just go somewhere else. And not walk all the way back to the bottom of a cave to ress there and have to fight your entire way out again

Skills went up to about level 40-50. There weren't that many, but you get to pick your advanced class at level 10(?) so I assume that would unlock a lot more of your skills. Which, I speculate, means your advanced class dictates what skills and abilities you have far more than just your basic class. Which is good!

They already had vendors everywhere selling all sorts of gear (good stuff with bonuses too) which seems to tell they have a lot of that stuff sorted out already for at least the lower levels.

Overall it was very polished, and I didn't mind the graphics/style (which I did before I got to play it). Everything flows well into each other and is a whole rather than a bunch of individual elements. I was expecting to be somewhat disappointed but I really enjoyed it and can't wait to play more. I need my next SWTOR shot!


Some critique: NPC / Character / Armor detail can use some more work, they seem to look a bit generic at the moment.
Still a bit of problems with NPC pathing. Like I had some of my enemies climb a wall and stand on the roof of a building. (Nothing a rocket to the face couldn't fix though)

I found the character animations to be... odd. Movement animations being the worst. The Bounty Hunter seemed a bit like a robot where the legs move independently from the torso. I'm also not a big fan of the way the gun is held in a static steady position (fore arms up).

Overall, I just really enjoyed my time playing and it flew by. It was easy to get into, but definitely had it's own touch and feel to it. MMOs have traditionally copied features like the UI because they have been proven to work well and well, they don't really dictate your game. The same is true of SWTOR compared to WoW. But the game has a 100% unique feel to it and is a blast to play even from the early levels on!

Q&A

Did you group up with anyone? Did you enter any instanced dungeons?
The starter world was pretty big, I only played at/around one town/city. There were 2-3 vendors I encountered there and they were selling armor only. But the town itself was pretty big too and I only went into some of the buildings, there were some huge other ones too but my quests didn't take me there.
I personally didn't get to any instanced dungeons. I did see some people at large green 'forcefields' but I'm not sure if these are the instanced dungeon entrances.

Also, pacing. Pacing of the combat, pacing of the advancement (if you even noticed that one).
I was constantly fighting really. There are just random enemies in between you and the quest area I had to get to. So even though you don't have a quest to kill them, you can just kill them while you walk towards town and get some nice xp. Quests seemed to be nicely packed together. Like, I didn't encounter a situation where Quest 1 was at the other side of of the area as Quest 2. I could do Quest 1 and then move on to Quest 2 nearby.
I did at one point think to myself "I'd like to have a mount" because I had to walk back to turn in the quest.

Did combat feel too fast, too slow? Weird getting hit by blaster, or did it feel different than it looks when watching someone else get hit with a blaster (if that question makes sense)?
Combat felt.. more action packed? I mean I had only 3 actual skills at this level but I was still constantly doing something, being able to move and shoot had a big impact on that. Due to the nature of the AOE attacks (like wrist rocket) and fighting multiple enemies you would also manage your targets while moving. Like if one guy had 10% health left and a guy next to him 60% you'd switch target to the 60% guy before firing your wrist rocket because it does (or seemed) to do more damage to the primary target. I can imagine that when acquiring CC skills you will be doing a lot more target managing like this. Fighting multiple opponents was a good move on their side. It makes a lot of difference.
Because you are almost always fighting multiple opponents and because you have several AOE attacks the fights become a bit more interactive.
Flamethrower for instance is a cone attack channel. So you want to position yourself in a direction so that you hit as many opponents as possible. So even at a low level you are managing several things in each fight rather than pummel one enemy for several seconds.

Getting hit by blaster fire... hmmm.. I can't say I really noticed anything that striked me as odd. The movement animation of the Bounty Hunter was odd but getting hit didn't really stand out for me one way or another.

The game felt very unique really. I am completely bored of WoW, I haven't played for 6 months and I got a scroll of resurrection a week ago, I played 1 day and was too bored of it to continue. At GamesCom you could play Cataclysm but it looked too uninteresting to me. Now, before I got to play I had seen some gameplay videos and I remember telling a friend it looked almost identical to WoW.
But my playing experience was completely different, it was really fun and I'd just love to play more of it as soon as possible.

Seeing how you're not fresh off the turnip truck with MMOG's, would you say it was further ahead of most MMOG's at this stage, or lagging to some degree?
I'd have to make a WoW comparison... I've found that a lot of MMOs, well, a lot of games in general, seem almost in something that would have to be an alpha-build when you play their beta say 2 months before release. The first game and to date still the only game that just was so very polished and well put together even in early beta being WoW (I started the US closed beta over a year before release I think). Sure there were bugs but the game worked very well and there was a lot of content already there.
Now in SWTOR's case I only saw the very early levels, so I can't comment on the majority of the game. But what I saw, was very well done, and besides the animations and pathing issues it would be pretty much ready for release.

Recent MMOs, especially Global Agenda and even moreso All Points Bulletin (though MMOFPS) were in such bad shape even at release. SWTOR looks a lot more like WoW in that respect. It won't come out of the box in an unfinished state that will require patches in the first few months to make it an actual finished game. But that's just the impression I get from those first few levels. For all I know the rest of the game is in a state of total disorder.

details...give us more please, anything you think might interrest the freaks in us:
I did check out the character sheet and it had a lot of tabs. Like tabs specific to the BH as well. A "Tech" tab I believe it was called. Stats were different too. You didn't have a specific stat that was purely critical strike chance for all of your attacks. But different stats gave different critical strike chance to different abilities/type of abilities if I remember correctly.
Also the stat "presence" (I believe its called that) is a stat that benefits your companion character's health and I think crit chance.

Ehm, you can make your map transparent and then you get some sort of magnifying glass area which makes only that area non-transparent so you can check stuff out better.
Even though inside buildings had their own maps you could still access these maps by clicking on the icon on the map for that building.
Areas on the map are always shown, like where a village is etc even though you haven't been there yet. But more details show if you do visit it. And it shows you if you haven't visited that specific area yet.
There's different elemental resistances and stuff.

I was wondering, since you seem to be a competent player, did you notice any of the silliness with point blank fire fights?
You can still shoot enemies when you are close to them. But what I noticed was that if you get close to a ranged enemy that enemy will walk backwards to get distance on you itself. The Bounty Hunter's flamethrower does need to be relatively close to be used. But that didn't mean I would personally run right into the enemy. My own experience was that it's best to lay down some blaster fire and then throw a wrist rocket at them. You then also know what enemy is a melee enemy and which one is ranged. If they are ranged, you are pretty much safe to get closer since you'll both be shooting at eachother anyway. Now if they're melee you obviously want them dead first.
Generally it would mean I'd start with blaster fire, wrist rocket, more blaster fire and run a bit closer (as their health will be getting low) and finish them all off with a flamethrower to the face. I was never in total point blank range (stood next to them) though. I don't think that would do any good, it would just limit the view you have of your surroundings and you could easily miss enemies shooting at you from behind. And since the NPC AI runs for distance and cover itself you could potentially trigger other nearby melee opponents.
I have to say though that in the BH starter area I encountered mostly ranged opponents. There were some beasts that came at you at melee, and in those situations you'd shoot at them from max range and let them come to you.

So, you said that the NPC's seemed to move away from you as you closed to melee range?
Yeah I moved close to some and they would run backwards away from me to a further distance. Some would also run for cover. Like I was fighting inside a building and one enemy would run back through the door into another room and hide behind the wall there. Since there were enemies in there as well I had to position myself so that I could still shoot him from the room I was in through the doorway. Others would run for cover as well behind crates or tents. I also found that a lot of materials in the world were 'solid'. What I mean with that is that they trigger Line of Sight and you can't just shoot through them. Which annoyed me in some other MMOs. Like how in WoW hunters in particular could shoot through environments or objects you were hiding behind.

The adventure begins on the wild planet Tython, a highly symbolic place where the Jedi Council has decided to establish itself in order to form a new generation of fighters. Even though we are but simple apprentices at the outset, the various tasks to be completed do not prove difficult. All of BioWare’s skills were put to carefully scripting each quest without them ever becoming overbearing. The result is that the player feels very quickly involved in the story, thus avoiding the monotony of [lower-level play] often experienced in most MMOs. Even better, the game quickly asks the player to make important choices through dialogue. If these are perhaps not as rich as those of Mass Effect, they still resume the multiple-choice system. Depending upon the questions asked and your responses to them, your path of adventure will change. There is little doubt that the future of the galaxy depends upon each of our actions, but the process and existence of certain quests are reassessed [according to choices (?)]. Like all BioWare products, The Old Republic goes even further than that in offering outright moral decisions. Little by little through actions and choices made in response to dialogue, one’s character may slide dangerously close to the Dark side of the Force. The line between good and evil is fine, and being a Jedi does not guarantee a bright destiny.

As for missions, the first two were concerned with saving unfortunate Padawans imprisoned in wooden cages, and checking into failed holographic systems. Along the way, you come across your first opponents. Again, BioWare has tried to stimulate the player’s imagination right from the go. Although endowed with initially weak powers, your character will face adversaries far more interesting than the usual snakes and rats found in other MMOs. This is the occasion to test the powers at your disposal and to use your saber, albeit not yet a lightsaber but one forged of more rudimentary metal. After dispatching a few baddies and looting their bodies, you are ready to learn new skills. A class trainer is provide for you. With each level a new skill, or improvement on one already known, is unlocked. Spending a bit of money will benefit you on the field of battle.

To differentiate between the two Jedi classes it is enough to observe their respective fighting styles. The Knight is extremely effective in melee, and possesses power and resistances adapted to close-quarters fighting. In spite of his saber, the Consular is more vulnerable to frontal assaults. It is thus endowed with ranged attacks. For example, a telekinesis ability that launches stones at the enemy, enough to keep them at bay before delivering the final blows with a well-placed saber. Very quickly, the attack combinations become clear. In order to counter multiple opponents at the same time, the Consular can, for example, send out an AOE shock wave. With opponents knocked down, it is enough to strike them from range before closing in to finish with melee. All of it feels very natural from the very beginning of play. BioWare has chosen to immediately equip the player with potent powers that are visually satisfying.

One immediately notices the impression of power generated by one’s character. Graphically, the game is looking better and better. The lighting effects and fighting animations lend grace to the powers. A special mention goes to one of the Knight’s attacks, which enables him to leap fifteen meters with a spin in the air before impaling an enemy with his saber. Exhilarating! The environments have also been carefully treated and filled of detail. As the character modeling is a little smooth, in a cartoon style, it will certainly generate debate, but it nevertheless remains convincing. In fact, the only worries concern unstable frame rate, a few collision bugs, and some problematic textures, but nothing at all very alarming as the version in our hands is far from the launch product. The epic music accentuates the intense action and perfectly underlines the Homeric nature of certain scenes. As for sound effects, they make the universe created by BioWare even more immersive.

If some still doubt that SWTOR is a vivid demonstration of know-how by the studio created in 1995 by Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, a simple glance at the interface shows just how far BioWare has digested and integrated the best of the competition while adding its own personal touch. While the action bar situated at the bottom of the screen, [with experience meter, and life and vitality gauges (?)] remains an old standard of MMORPGs, the map functionality is much more original. This clever arrangement makes the open map transparent when you move your character. It makes it possible to make one’s way to a desired location with eyes on the map and the real action at the same time. This will make life easier for those who spend lots of time on the galaxy’s different planets. As in all MMOs, you will be tasked with traveling great distances during the course of an adventure, with the numerous round trips that follow meeting and returning to NPCs in order to receive rewards and new goals.

Shortly before closing this long game session, BioWare also kindly let us explore an instance in a 4-man group. Though SWTOR can be played almost entirely solo, the possibility of grouping of course also exists. In just a few clicks we are engaged in combat, playing a Jedi Consular backed by a Jedi Knight and a Smuggler. Though the objective remained straightforward while progressing through the interior of an enormous ship, eliminating enemies, this brief time allowed us to learn more about the functionality of groups. During dialogue phases, each player chooses a response and the outcome is determined randomly. This caused some debate between players who wished to impart different twists to the quest’s direction. The various fighting powers seemed to compliment each other well. The Smuggler, in cover behind environmental objects, lined up his adversaries from range, accompanied by the Consular, while the Jedi Knight was in charge of finishing the job in melee. Unlike some competitors, BioWare has designed the instances to not spread out over too much time. This first special zone was completed in an hour and a half, and with the key some nice rewards to equip our avatars. Though we wished to continue, we had to stop our play session there. We’ll now have to wait several months before discovering the thousands of other secrets of which BioWare remains the abiding guardian.

The Old Republic: The Lost Suns. A five-issue series set during the timeframe of the highly-anticipated MMO The Old Republic, The Lost Suns is set approximately 3,600 years before the movies. It stars Republic spy Theron Shan, son of Jedi Master Satele Shan, and packs explosive revelations relating to the events of the game. For this tale the games senior writer Alexander Freed reunites with the Blood of the Empire creative team of Dave Ross (pencils), Mark McKenna (inks), Michael Atiyeh (colors), and Benjamin Carre (covers).

As mentioned, the Jedi Knight has at least one viable DPS option that involves a single lightsaber.

As to the exact details of how that option stacks up against dual lightsaber damage - at the moment, I would call it 'definitely viable'.

As for % differences, we're not ready to give you those as the game is in very active balancing.

The Jedi Guardian now has the option to be played as a single lightsaber DPS role.

This was something we added recently based on Game Testing feedback.

You'll actually see it in action at PAX East.

Naturally, since we are using recorded VO from high quality actors, you won't be able to hear your name spoken.

Thankfully, there are ways around it ... my young Jedi.

This week’s Friday Update will debut at #PAX East! Join us at 10:15am EST at Booth 912 and help us kick off #SWTORPAX !

Have you ever tried to take a steady video in a rainstorm?

Seriously it's hard

In general environmental effects get done towards the end of a project, so the videos don't have the latest and greatest in that regard. You'll see some serious weather at PAX East though I think.

As Georg is not in the office right now, I'll answer on his behalf (and with his words) - the answer is no, not at launch.

As always with an MMORPG, things may change in the future, but player bounties are not planned for the launch of The Old Republic.

Space combat in swtor is a mini- game, and in that sense looks good. Maybe in the future they add to it a multiplayer component.

Това вярно ли е?

Досега - horrible fail... всички очакват дата на излизане ама те ...