Friday Update: Belsavis, New WebComic, GDC Info

Today revealed more tidbits about Star Wars: The Old Republic. First up, a new planet:

Since before the Great War, the ancient Rakatan prisons of Belsavis have been maintained by the Republic and used to incarcerate some of the galaxys most dangerous Sith lords, Mandalorian warriors, and ferocious aliens. Having recently discovered the location of this Republic super prison, the Empire is determined to see its allies released.

Access the HoloNet to learn more about the ancient prisons of Belsavis, and the horrible secrets contained within its vaults. View the glacial world of Belsavis in this video and visit the media section for never-before-seen screenshots, concept art, and wallpapers depicting the setting and the struggle of Belsavis.


UPDATE: One of the guys from our community ventrilo, Glyph went and translated all the Aurebesh on the Holonet page.

Echo of the Rakata
Imprisoned Esh-Kha
Beware the Mandalorian Hunting Parties
Hallowed Voice

He also translated "Welcome to the Holonet" and now regrets it.

Blood of the Empire, a new webcomic series, was also introduced:

BioWare and LucasArts have once again teamed up with Dark Horse to create this original comic series published entirely online. Blood of the Empire features a new perspective and strong character-driven story written by BioWares Senior Writer Alexander Freed and published by Dark Horse.

Set in the years before the Treaty of Coruscant and the establishment of peace between the great galactic powers, Blood of the Empire sets the stage for The Old Republic with new heroes, new villains and new revelations about the inner workings of the Emperors cabal.

Sean Dahlberg also clarified GDC coverage:

While there were no panels this year specifically related to The Old Republic during Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2010, there are a few panels that consisted of BioWare developers.

There was also an off-site event specifically for The Old Republic that various press and fan sites were invited to. None of this information will show up till early next week so keep your eyes peeled for that.

We previewed some of our GDC session coverage here and here, and our live Q&A is scheduled for Monday at 6PM PST / 9PM EST that we hope you attend.

UPDATE: Sean shed some light on the latest update while responding to users on the official forum. In response to Adis' point - "First, the prison was not constructed 300 years ago. It is ancient."

That is correct; we haven't stated when exactly the prison was created... only that it was constructed by the Rakatan Empire (or Infinite Empire) which means it would be a good guesstimate to think it was crafted between 31,000 BTC and 21,000 BTC.

In response to Caon's statement - "Yay Thank you person who decides what to release I got my wish of a new planet this week"

We do our best to stick with a semi-transparent schedule but most of that also depends on the development team. We do our best to ensure that anything we put on the site is information that won't have to change too much (if at all) before we launch the game. We don't want to put up something on the site that we "think" will be in the game only to be removed or re-prioritized till later because it gives the community the wrong expectations. So, before we think about releasing anything, we check with the rest of the team to ensure they are confident on the state of it and then do our best to capture their work in an interesting way, get it all approved, translated (remember, we do our best to release everything simultaneously to our entire community in English, French, and German), and then out to the community.

In response to Puppies' comment "Bloody hell that's wicked Have to laugh at Sean saying there wouldn't be much in the way of info for a while and still the good stuff keeps coming - cheer Sean and the team"

This all depends on what you consider "new info". A lot of people love the planet updates, Timelines, Developer Dispatches, etc. Others want more details on game mechanics (understandably); they want to hear more about character creation and development and a variety of other unanswered questions. And the answers will be coming but like I said above, we will only be releasing it when the entire team is confident on the information we are releasing. And when we do, we'll make sure everyone knows about it; social network updates, newsletters, etc.

In response to ProfessorWalsh's question - "You know BioWare it'd be nice if you would include at least one Republic stronghold in this game that doesn't get overrun by the Sith. What the heck is with that?"

One of the things you have to keep in mind is the state of the galaxy. If you've been following the archives of Master Gnost-Dural, the Threat of Peace, or the Sacking of Coruscant, you'll know that the Galactic Republic was in a bad spot. The Republic was essentially strong-armed into the Treaty of Coruscant. This wasn't a war the Republic even saw coming and something the Sith Empire has been staging for a long time. When your enemy has had the time to study your defenses, to tamper with your politics, and attack en masse when you didn't even know you were going to be in a war... it quickly puts you on the defense.

In response to Chronium's question - "So does that mean it's actually going to be 18/19 pages instead of 3 that the Threat of Peace did?"

It will be keeping it's bi-weekly schedule but we have increased the amount of pages from three (3) to seven (7) each issue. We also have a few new faces working on it: Written by Alexander Freed (our very own Senior Writer here on TOR), illustrated by Dave Ross, inked by Mark McKenna, colored by Michael Atiyeh, and lettered by Michael Heisler

In response to Obi-wanJacobi comment - "Same for me, I'm not a Sith fan (I actually support the Jedi in battles), I just want to know what happens/learn more about the series of events, structure etc. Basically the Sith at this point has the most secrets, so it is logical to assume that more about them will be revealed, therefore I am more interested in them at the moment. The Republic on the other hand... there Isn't much to find out.... but if there was, I'd be interested."

That is one of the reasons we created Blood of the Empire. There isn't a lot known about the Sith Empire due to them because they haven't been a part of the galaxy's history records since the Great Hyperspace War. This series will give the readers more insight into their culture and why the Sith are who they are today.

In response to Moza - "I'm one of the people who really enjoyed Threat of Peace, and I'm sure this will be great too (if not even better). I have a feeling that Blood of the Empire will also take place over three acts, leading up to a published TPB - and then perhaps a new webcomic series to complete the trilogy (perhaps called "Blade of the Republic" or something??)."

Interesting idea... ;)

Hat tip to chronium on the heads up about Sean's response to the community's comments.

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