Darth Hater

E3 revealed a great deal of exciting information on Star Wars: The Old Republic, from player ships to warzones. However, people couldn't help but hear the disappointment in my voice when I excitedly started to play the Sith Inquisitor, participated in the opening quest dialog, and proceeded to run smack into stationary Class Trainers. With this reveal in mind, I feel it is necessary to point out what we speculated in January as the ability gaining and leveling system for the classes -- with the exception of getting access to talent trees only after you selected your Advanced Class -- is

WRONG!

Last Friday, Taris became the tenth announced planet for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Taris is an iconic and special location for fans of BioWare, first seen in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Taris was mentioned in numerous books and other video games, such as Star Wars: Empire at War. Perhaps by understanding how Taris evolved into abandoned ruins, we can understand why the Republic would wish to start anew.

Dromund Kaas was recently announced as the ninth planet for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Although this planet isn't fairly well-known, Dromund Kaas embodies the idea of the dark side; its corrupting power, its intrigue, and its deadly nature. Identifying how this planet is connected to the Sith Empire helps to understand why this planet belongs in game.

Tatooine's announcement as the eighth planet for Star Wars: The Old Republic should come as no surprise to Star Wars fans. It has been featured in a multitude of previous video games ranging from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic to Star Wars Galaxies. It has been featured in all of the Star Wars movies, though only mentioned in Empire Strikes Back. Although it is a familiar planet, it is still worth re-examining its lore, geography, and overall purpose.

By: Emlaeh & Zenkei

"Eight unique classes" is a statement BioWare often repeats in multiple interviews, as it illustrates the solid theme they are using to approach designing the combat of the classes of Star Wars: The Old Republic.

This very clear statement is starting to get muddied when speculating upon how the various classes will specialize themselves and work together in a group.

Looks like the forums are busy speculating about this week's Friday update again. Droopy_McKool spotted a nice little tidbit at Drew Karpyshyn blog:

What I should be talking about, however, is Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil. It hits shelves in less than 50 days, and it's already available for pre-orders. So starting in November I'm going to be doing more updates and pushing this novel HARD. I'll also be updating my SW Blog for the first time in months, and in November I'll be doing a post for BioWares Star Wars: The Old Republic developer blog.

This makes sense, as it is typical for BioWare to release a Developer Blog the first Friday of the month.

Nal Hutta is a fitting starting planet for the Bounty Hunter. The now native Hutts have transformed this once lush, vibrant world into a barren toxic waste dump, leaving the native life mutated or irreparably damaged. The current population is made up of rival gangs, struggling to survive, and anyone willing to take advantage of dangerous, yet profitable, situations. It is on this planet that you will start to seek your fortune as best you can.

During the Battle of Bothawui timeline video, Bioware mentioned that the Sith had taken the Seswenna Sector in the Outer Rim. Although nothing has been confirmed as to whether any planets in this sector will be in-game, let's explore the lore behind this sector and see if we can pick out a few important planets.

Bounty Hunters are among the most infamous characters in the Star Wars universe. They are mercenaries for hire that don't care who they work for or what they to do, because, in the end, they are only in it for themselves. If you chose to play a Bounty Hunter you will risk your life on a constant basis, all for the thrill of the hunt and the glory of the kill.

"Bounty hunters. We don't need their scum."

- Admiral Firmus Piett

One reason BioWare is setting Star Wars: The Old Republic 3ooo years before the movies is that it allows more flexibility with the lore. They can change certain elements of history as they see fit and it is necessary to address what alterations they may have decided upon. The most recent of these possible changes comes to us in the The Making of Coruscant. I will list certain quotes that I found relevant to the lore story arch and how they might effect game play, as well as my interpretation. It is important to note that everything written about the lore is purely speculative unless expressly stated otherwise by Bioware.

Every planet is different. Each planet has its own architecture, geography, native peoples, as well as native plants and animals. While viewing each of the planets, we can see the few creatures that have been released to the general public. Since we will all be on these planets for an extensive amount of time, hopefully, it is probably best to get to know the native creatures we will be dealing with on a regular basis.

I am sure we all know what guild housing is and how it operates in other games, such as LotRO or Guild Wars, but let's explore this aspect in the Star Wars setting. There are two ways in which I could see guild housing being implemented, if it is at all. Either it could be designed as a literal house or building on an already designed planet, such as Korriban or Coruscant, or it could be put on a separate, just for guild halls planet. But not only that, perhaps it would much more convenient to allow guild housing upon ships, instead of planet(s).

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.

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We all know and love being able to get from point A to point B as fast as possible, but how will we do it? Will we be walking halfway across a planet to reach the remote and dangerous encounter? Will we have a handy dandy speeder to zip there in no time? Will we have a ship with atmospheric flight to go even faster? All are possible with the models we have seen, but what will be our options?



Best bet for transit is our handy dandy speeder. It creates the iconic feel of the movies without having to deal with skipping over content as atmospheric flight would do. After all, Luke didnt run on foot to Old Ben's and then to Mos Eisley. You also didnt see the Melinium Falcon take off and fly 2 miles so Han could reach his target. He would land at the local town and then would use short range transportation to reach his target. The only way I could see no transportation options when on land would be if the worlds are the size of KotOR, but that would mean hundreds of worlds would be needed for the scale of an MMO. We will just need to wait and see how transportation plays out in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.