Darth Hater

Over at Ten Ton Hammer, Star Wars: The Old Republic's Emmanuel Lusinchi speaks a bit about open world PvP objectives:

Now, with open world PvP, we have objectives that can just happen naturally you run into players of another faction and you can just attack them, especially on PvP servers. But we also have special places where there are objectives. Fulfilling the objectives will give you some tokens as well, which are different from the warzone tokens. They can be exchanged for each other, but not a favorable rate so that we encourage you to do both forms of PvP, but we dont force you to do both forms of PvP. The reason why we have objectives in the open world for open world PvP is a) to focus the player as they know that there will players on the other side who is trying to do this objective, which is great. Its a big universe, where do you fight otherwise? Not only does it let us focus them, it allows us to focus them in the right way, because if you put every player on the server onto one spot, it never works very well for many reasons: technical, gameplay, visual effects. It spreads them though the clever design of objectives and the clever design of what you need to do. It gives us control, but its also out of control because its open world.

Read more from BioWare's Associate Lead Designer, as he also hints at some itemization features and other topics. Thanks to JW for the tip.

Star Wars: The Old Republic designer Gabe Amatangelo took some time during Gamescom to answer some questions about Operations and Warzones. He even dropped a few nuggets about what types of RPG elements we can expect inside Flashpoints, and possibly something to look forward to at PAX.

Hit the jump for more, as maybe three times asking the same question is the charm...

Darth Hater is live from the show floor again for the first Gamescom general admission day. Long lines for Star Wars: The Old Republic started up as soon as the doors opened, and this afternoon brings a scheduled Producer Presentation at 12:45p CET / 3:45a PT. Make sure to keep your eyes locked to this post for day one coverage of Gamescom 2011.

• Gamescom 2011 Photo Gallery - Updated with photos from Day One


• BioWare Pulse Hands on with Razer Peripherals


• Producer Presentation Video


• Day One Eternity Vault Demonstration Video

This week's Star Wars: The Old Republic Friday Update is a Fan Friday. Included in the update are two new polls, new wallpapers, and new Aurebesh forum phrases. Even though not part of the update, BioWare announced GamesCom details as well. GamesCom runs from August 18 and ends on August 21 in Cologne, Germany. New information and reveals will come out of the event and fans lucky enough to attend GamesCom will be able to get hands on with the Alderaan PVP Warzone and Origin Worlds. GamesCom attendees will also get to see demonstrations of a small amount of the recently announced Eternity Vault Operation.

As always, Darth Hater will be at GamesCom bringing you the news and reveals straight from the show floor. Look for our coverage starting next week.

Official DevTracker posts follow the jump.

In an interview from GamesCom that was just recently posted on GameReactor, Rich Vogel confirms the existence of Battlegrounds. No specifics on what form of battlegrounds or anything else so do not expect to find it here in this interview or this early in the development cycle.

Sean posted his glorious Friday preview thread mentioning that this week's update will be a new holorecord:

It's Thursday so we definitely need a thread about what tomorrow's update will be. This Friday Master Gnost-Dural will be posting a new holorecord on what he discovered pertaining to the resurgence of the Mandalorians and the rise of the new Mandalore.

And, if you're going to be at the Penny Arcade Expo, makes sure to read this thread.

He also mentioned in another thread that the PAX demo is the essentially the same one that was shown at GamesCom:

Same demo as the one on Saturday and essentially the same demo done at GamesCom (and shown in the Developer Walkthrough). [in reply to]

In case you missed today's XPlay here is the preview that you missed on The Old Republic:



Unfortunately nothing new was really shown or mentioned in the preview that we have not seen already. However, for those that have not been keeping up day to day with what is going on in the Star Wars: The Old Republic scene it is a good summation of what was seen at GamesCom.

Here's a heads up for people with a DVR:

Don't miss any of X-Play's fall specials. It all gets started as X-Play presents Gamescom 2009, starting Monday, August 31st at 6:30PM. Catch a preview of Mass Effect 2, Castlevania, Star Wars: The Old Republic and a hands-on demo of Dirt 2.

They do not mention what it will feature but it is probably worth recording anyways if you're looking for more info on The Old Republic. I will be making sure to catch it myself and if anything comes out of it ill make sure to post about it ;).

A new hands-on review is out, and the folks over at Games Radar are bringing it to our attention,

Be sure to note,

All that said, BioWare has done a great job in bringing the Star Wars universe to an MMO. And when you consider the entire game is different for each of the four player classes (Sith Warrior, Bounty Hunter, Smuggler and Trooper) with zero repetition ofquests between them, you're looking at a doubly massive MMO

See the full article here.

Well, the folks over at SWTOR-Station might have stumbled upon the great Housing topic

And this article will also contain the following information we heard at the demo cinema the last day. As the typical MMO features of the game were enumerated not only PvP, auction houses and crafting were mentioned, but also housing was part of this list. You can imagine that we stared at each other in disbelief Nothing has been confirmed yet, but it's a good hint at the fact that conventions make you tired and even BioWare employees let something slip out then.

See the small article here.

The demo walkthrough was just posted:

Whether you were busy being digested in the Sarlacc Pit, Bounty Hunters stole your speeder or like at least one of us you were encased in carbonite and unable to make it to Germany for GamesCom, weve got something for you.

Head over to IGN.com to watch a video of the complete Developer Gameplay Walkthrough showcased at this weeks GamesCom. Get a close-up look at the Bounty Hunter and Smuggler on the worlds of Hutta and Ord Mantell. Jump to the Sith home-world of Korriban and meet the Sith Warrior class. Be transported aboard an Imperial transport ship to see the Bounty Hunter and Sith Warrior decide the fate of the captain and crew aboard the Black Talon.

The video contains almost 20 minutes of actual gameplay footage so check it out at IGN.com

We should have the dissection up in a couple hours, currently doing it right now.

Erick Adams posted an update to give us a rough idea on when the video is coming:

Here's a quick update about the video:

Yes we are in the process of getting the video up and we appreciate your patience while we continue working on this. At the moment it looks like it should be in place later today.

We are incredibly excited to be able to show you this footage, and will be posting updates to let you know how the situation progresses.

Thanks again for your patience while we finish getting the footage posted

The guys from G4 got a chance to sit down and talk about SWTOR and mention much of the same content discussed in their preview except for one thing - the out of combat heal has a 60 second cooldown.



Thanks to MongoMoon for the video.

SWTOR-Station had the opportunity to play the demo that the Bioware team is showing at GamesCom and came back with some great info on the game. One piece of the information talked about in the preview that struck us had to do with the notion that there will be multiple Sith or force user classes:

We asked Richard Vogel, one of the studio managers at Austin, if the addendum "Warrior" means that there might be two force sensitive Sith classes. His answer was a bit cautious, but it suggested to us that this isn't the case.

Note: You may have to click the US/UK flag in the top right hand corner of their site for the English version of the article.

Clean out those Ethernet tubes and put on your bandwidth hats. Erick Adams has let us know that tomorrow's video will be almost 20 minutes long And from the looks of it, we'll be seeing more of the Sith Warrior next week (Holonet/article perhaps?).

Hey Everybody With GamesCom 2009 in full swing, we wanted to give you some updates on the story so far.

Here's a running list of announcements and TOR related news from this year's GamesCom.

• Game Play Demo. We showed a more complete version of the demo content showcased at this years E3 with confirmation of a new character class. As Sean has said several times - if you werent able to get to Germany for GamesCom this year, dont sweat We plan on making the full footage available for viewing.


• Sith Warrior Confirmed. Finally the Lightsaber-wielding Sith from the E3 video has a name Check back tomorrow to see the Sith Warrior in action


• Ever wonder how to say Star Wars in French and German? At the press conference we announced that www.swtor.com and the Community forums are now fully localized in French and German

Just to bring you up to speed on anything you may have missed, heres a running list of some of the press coverage (aka The Story So Far):

• IGN: http://pc.ign.com/articles/101/1015748p1.html - Highlighting game demo and footage


• MMORPG: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?r...hcp=1&game=367


• GamesSpot: http://gamescom.gamespot.com/story/6...e-sith-warrior - interview with BioWares James Ohlen.


• VE3D (IGN): http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/49...mescom-Cologne - EA press conference announcements.


• G4TV: http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/69...9-Preview.html


• Darth Hater: http://darthhater.com/2009/08/18/darth-hater-gamescom/


• Kotaku: http://kotaku.com/5340512/gamescom-b...ublic/gallery/ - last but not least, some pics from the TOR base of operations.

Be sure to check back tomorrow to see the full Producer Walkthrough Video almost 20 minutes of actual gameplay footage and next week when we turn our full attention to Sith Warrior

IGN had the chance to sit down and play the demo that Bioware is showing at GamesCom and gives us insight on what we will be seeing from the demo video on friday. In this hands on IGN talks about the Sith Warrior class and new areas on Korriban:

Though we'd have been happy just to see the same demo again, the BioWare team has included an entirely new portion focused on the Sith Warrior class. This close-combat fighter begins on Korriban where Sith are trained. The starting story involves the player learning just what it means to be a Sith -- their attitudes towards power, responsibility, and honor. The Sith player will also get more practical instruction in terms of how and when to use their abilities in combat. We saw this firsthand as the new Sith went down into a recently excavated tomb to recover a powerful artifact. Down there, he will have to fight against giant slugs and other looters who have come to find their own treasures.

There is also a little bit near the end confirming the dialogue rolls that we mentioned before in our dissection we did a while back:

Determining which of the characters get to pick the next conversation option is currently determined randomly. The trouble is that the conversation choices often have significant consequences. Since this is an MMO where you can't save your game and reload it to try to get a different outcome, the designers are looking into ways to protect individual players during group conversations. Right now, it's a bit of an unknown but BioWare is testing a few ideas.

Kotaku was able to take some pictures of the booth in almost entirety for those that are not able to attend GamesCom. Pretty interesting booth I must say. The booth definitely looks like a cantina or at the least a night club at Disney World.

[Link] for the pictures.

There are also two shots at the EA feed:
Inside the demo room
At the gates

It has been confirmed that every class will have an out of combat heal that will allow players to keep progressing rather than the game slowing down artificially through eating/drink breaks:

Even at this early stage and basic complement of attacks, combat was very fast and almost like a pure action game. Each class is going to have an out-of-combat heal, which keeps the pace moving quickly.

We had heard about this before in one of the developer interviews a while back but it nice to see it has finally be confirmed in the demo.

I wanted to give you guys a little heads up for those that have been asking when the Demo Walkthrough Video will be hitting the net. The best gauge we have to go on so far as to when it will be released is from a prior post by Sean:

Next week is pretty exciting; just the Developer Walkthrough video alone will be an eye catcher. We are looking to release that next Friday (on the website, demos will be going on every day at the convention) so if you happen to want to take a break for this Friday, definitely come back next week.

If it ends up hitting the net earlier or the ETA on the video is revised, we will post about it. If everything goes as planned the dissection should be up within a couple hours of the video being posted. Also, Episode 4 of our podcast should also be going up the day after the video does so look for that soon.

Flickr Image via ea@gamescom

Join us for our liveblog of the press event. You can find the stream of the live event at EA's website. Update: Click read more to see the replay of the Live Blog.

Biggest bit of news revealed at the event about SWTOR was that the Voice Overs will be done in English, French, and German which I am sure is welcomed news for those concerned about it.