SWTOR information gathered thus far from various sources

**Trollsbane** · 2011-03-24, 03:59 AM

Final update: Ode to the fans http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...Get-pumped-up!

It's been awesome building this community. Thanks for the help everyone. Early access begins on 12-13!

Dec 9 : Added progression videos to videos
Nov 18: NO MORE NDA!
Nov 10: Added Fansite Summit info at bottom
Nov 10: Added Imperial Agent video to videos

This is a thread talking about the aspects of swtor. It's not about you not liking it without actually researching it.
It's not about how much WoW, GW2, Rift, every other game is just better.

If you have actual real questions or concerns about things in the game you wish were there or not there, why they decided to do something, or something of that nature, that's fine. It's not here for you to bitch about how crap it is because you personally don't like it.

You WILL be infracted for it. If you are a swtor fan and bash other games and troll in the same way, you will also be infracted. Don't waste our time reporting just to troll right back. ~Myrrar

DO NOT POST STORY SPOILERS IN THIS THREAD

Hello all. This thread will place all the information scattered about in the numerous threads into one centralized location. Instead of 30 threads repeating the same thing over and over again, you can easily look at this thread and see everything you would like to know. I will keep updating the first post so all the information is attainable by looking at one page, and not shifting through 100 pages to hope to find an answer.

If you have info that you would like to be added here, please PM me with it so I can add it. If you have any questions about the game that are not covered here, go ahead and ask, and we will do our best to answer and I will add the question to the main post. I will definately miss a lot of things, so please help me add to it.
Thanks all, and I hope this brings an end to the needless repeating of information throughout numerous threads.
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*Please understand that Bioware has stated that they have a very specific marketing schedule and are sticking to it. Many things have not been shown or answered yet. They are not releasing info that might be changed, so nobody can say they lied.
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Preface:

Hello TOR fans, old and new. Since just before E3 this year, this thread has exploded. We gained 1400 posts and about 90,000 new views during E3, and it still hasn't really slowed down. So, I'd like to go over a few things.

My name is Trollsbane, but you may call me Trolls for short. =p I run this thread out of love for this game. I feel it's important to combat the huge amount of disinformation that circulates about this game. This is THE big upcoming game of the MMO industry. Everyone is following it hoping it succeeds, competes, or fails. I put together a compilation of known facts on the first page to help find all the info people are looking for by puting it in one easy to find place.

I've had a chance to play this game. I was never a chosen game tester. I know a few things about this game that the general public does not. And for the most part, it will stay that way. Although I am bound by no NDA, I still won't discuss things that have not already been seen outside of conventions. What I can do, is elaborate further than many of the fansites have done. This of course does not stop others from posting beta leaks. I'm just saying it won't come from myself.

Having played the game, I can say (as true with almost every game) seeing videos of gameplay does this game no justice in any form. It plays smooth and looks beautiful. It's not "WoW in space". It's an evolution. The story, something that many still believe is impossible in an MMO, truly makes this game gripping and more immersive than anything else in the market ever hoped to be. This can only be felt when you actually get to play it. But the story is not by anymeans the only great thing this game has to offer. This is Bioware at their best.

The community in this forum is something I really care about. Discussion is fine, and wanted. But flaming is something we need to work to avoid. People love to pop into this thread and post the 1 bad review out of 100. They like to say how the game looks like crap and this or that is bad. Etc. Etc. Ignore these people. Report the post and move on. As for ourselves, treat eachother with respect. You are not special, so don't act like you sit above the rest.

Don't go into another video game's thread and flame. Many people here have interest in more than one game, and have built a friendly community with the lovers of that game. Mainly this applies to Guild Wars 2 and the people in that thread. We won't see eye to eye on many a things, but that is no reason to disrespect them, and vice versa.

Don't start any retarded "WoW killer" posts. You look like an idiot, and thus make us look like tools. Keep the TOR talk civil and in this thread. We don't need another Rift fiasco in these forums. If you have ideas or something that you would like added to the front page, please post it here for more input or send me a message.

TL;DR: You're an idiot and should just read the damn thing.

Be respectful and help eachother. Read the post on the front page to find many answers you may have.

Content:
-Links to the best information *Most info posted in this post is copy and pasted from these sources. If you want more detail on a subject, you can check these sites.
-Excerpts of key points from links including popular questions
-Videos
-Random quotes and interviews
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Links:

Official site: http://www.swtor.com

FAQ: http://www.swtor.com/info/faq

All info gathered on SWTOR so far: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=188836 *This is the single best source for typed info. He has a ton up there*

Developer Tracker: http://www.swtor.com/community/devtracker.php

Fansites:

http://darthhater.com/
http://corellianrun.com/
http://www.askajedi.com/
http://www.swtorstrategies.com/
http://www.torocast.com/
http://r2-db.com/
http://moseisleyradio.com/
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_...e_Old_Republic
http://www.sithwarrior.com/ (Theory crafting)
http://www.youtube.com/user/Rainfalls7711 (Info guides)
http://www.youtube.com/user/swtorextreme

Who am I you ask? I'm the guild leader for an Empire guild named Respected and Despised. The name was origionally made to annoy a fellow guild leader that hates the word rad, and we were gonna make a guild spanning both factions. After consideration, we decided leading one faction and rolling alts together somewhere else would be the better course. I'm a former GM/raid leader in WoW and this is my new game and I can't wait for it to come out. =)

http://radguild.guildlaunch.com

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Excerpts and popular questions:

When is this game coming out?
Game Revealed Date: October 2008
Game Release Date: 12-20-2011
Game Testing Started: 9th July 2010
Beta Testing: Is by invite only. Signup on swtor.com's main page
Pre-Orders are a go!
Though there are more unanswered questions now than ever...
http://www.swtor.com/preorder/faq
http://www.swtor.com/preorder

Minmum system specs:
-OSWindows XP, Vista/7 CPUAMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ or better · Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2.0GHz or better
RAMWindows XP: 1.5GB
-Windows Vista and Windows 7: 2GB ·
-PCs using a built-in graphical chipset, 2GB RAM recommended. VideoATI X1800 or better* · nVidia 7800 or better* · Intel 4100 Integrated Graphics or better*
-DVD-ROM8x or better *Minimum of 256MB of on-board RAM and Shader 3.0 or better support.

10 things that make TOR stand out
1. Putting the RPG back into MMORPG. Story story story: In most games, their idea of a story is quest text and fan made website databases. SWTOR not only gives a unique personalized story for each class, but gives you choices in how you complete quests. Think single player quality quests in a mmo environment.

2. Fully voiced: Not something totally new, but being totally 100% voiced changes the flow of how the story is presented. This isn't someone just reading the quest text to you, or yelling to the masses about what's going on in front of you. It lets the story come out in smaller pieces along the way, and adds a depth that we have never seen in an MMO.

3. LS/DS/Grey system: We don't know exactly how it works yet, but the morality system allows for more character customization, as well as quest choices. You don't have to do what the guy next to you did!

4. No invisible walls/loading screens (aside from going from planet to planet, but a cinematic takes the place of a loading screen): The idea is to make you feel like you are in a large world with others. There's no need to look at an uninteresting loading screen when a ship takes you to another place. There are no magical invisible walls blocking you from drowning or jumping over a ridge.

5. Cover system: A new way for ranged to fight. Instead of just kiting all the time, lightly armored ranged characters can hide behind objects to not just LoS things, but to actually shoot from a protected state. An interesting idea considering most npcs in this setting will probably have a gun.

6. Personal starships: A mix of personal housing and a space combat mini-game. Quite a unique solution to both systems.

7. Companions: Not only do these "pets" add to your story, crafting system, and character customization. They add a whole new way to level characters. Healers and tanks can learn their role from level 1 because they will be in a group with their companion even when solo. Exactly how they will work in groups is still being worked out, but in some way or another they will help fill in missing roles in groups.

8. Crew system (quite a unique system for crafting): Crafting without the grinding? Yep. You can do all the work yourself if you really like flying around in circles looking for flowers to pick, but if you don't you can send your companions to farm mats, make items, or even go off on missions.

9. Cinematic combat: Unlike most other MMOs where you have 1 generic animation for each action (different for different races and genders maybe), and sometimes even repeated animations. Here we see jedi blocking attacks from different angles and characters getting knocked backwards mid jump, etc. The subtle animations are amazing to see and make you appreciate the depth that the team took it to.

10. Ranged tanks: In WoW these only showed up as gimmicks in fight mechanics. In this game you can have your main tank shooting from afar, standing toe to toe, or maybe even kiting, all depending on what enemy you are facing, instead of having to poke the boss's toe with a sword. Again an interesting idea considering so many enemies in this game will be ranged.

And 5 more courtesy of Bane123
I'll give you just 5 reasons why it's different from WoW

1. No auto attack. You might say meh that's not really a reason, but coming from a person who played melee characters for the majority of WoW, I'd see that as a noticeable difference when playing, as i'll have to be actively engaged in fighting or else i would most likely die unless my companion is good enough to take out the whole group for me. Whatever damage you do is a result of what abilities you use, no more white hits on your damage meters hehe.

2. Fully voiced NPCs. That's pretty huge in an MMO where there are tons of different characters that you'd encounter out in the world and even your own character has a voice of his/her own. Daniel Erickson the lead writer for the game stated that there are hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue present in the game, and enough to fill 50-60 novels. That is a really huge undertaking for an MMO to do, and it will eliminate the quest text skipping that majority of the players have done in WoW and keep them actively involved/immersed in what's actually going on in the story (but there is a skip button - spacebar for those who could care less, but you still have dialogue choices based on what's being spoken in-game).

3. You don't have to farm your mats for yourself. This is true, you won't have to grind for mats any more, although you can do it if you want, but why would you do that when you have 5 companions that can do it for you? I don't know the specific numbers but i think i remember someone stating that you can send out 3 companions to gather the mats for you. You can even tell them to farm it while you're offline, so when you log on you can just get the mats with minimal effort from yourself. It makes sense because in the movies you don't see Darth Vader farming mats, he had his minions do all the grindy work for him.

4. Romance-able companion characters and NPCs. Yes you can romance your companion characters (just the humanoids - no Jawa sex!). Your companion characters have separate personalities and feelings towards your actions, and you can take advantage of that by playing with their feelings and romancing them. You can even do this with NPCs. In a leaked video from a beta tester he kissed one of his quest NPCs (the rest is unkown since it fades to black hehe). You definitely can't do that in WoW hehe.

5. The leveling is different for each class (for the most part). I remember leveling alts many times, just repeating the same quests in the zones that were the easiest to do quests over and over because it was the fastest way to level. In SW:TOR each class has a separate and distinct story that is different from the other classes that you might have played. Some people have stated that it can take 200 hours to level a class. I wouldn’t doubt it because this game is pretty much KOTOR 3 to maybe even 10 combined with the scale at which this game is being made. And beta testers have said that it feels like Vanilla WoW leveling. Different players can level at different rates but with the class stories and world story quests present in the game it can take you longer to level to 50 than it is to level from 1-85 in WoW and it will still feel different when you play a different class because you can’t repeat the same quests or repeat the same dialogue options as they are completely different. Also the dialogue choices you make which can affect your alignment (Lightside/Darkside/Neutral – Grey) can affect the type of gear you can wear and the different looks that come with it, and can give you access to different titles and the looks of your character.

Anyways the list can go on and on with the differences, but it can also go on and on if you’re just playing the game to nitpick to look for similarities that SW:TOR is to WoW. It’s similar and distinct at the same time

Is TOR all about story, and not worried about gameplay?
"Story trumps everything... Until it runs into gameplay." "What we do not do, is futz with your gameplay."
Also: "There is no 4th wall breaking in TOR." (Funny references from popular media)

Is TOR really an open world MMORPG, or just a linear single player RPG in a multiplayer world?
It will be a true open world MMO.
"It’s a massively multiplayer game. That’s what people are signing up for and that’s what we’re giving them."
"James Ohlen: We do have some pretty huge worlds. Alderaan is the equivalent of 7 or 8 of World of Warcraft zones. It is just huge. The world is gigantic and it takes so long to run from one end to the other. Of course you have speeder bikes and landspeeders that you can get across the world a lot faster.
In terms of keeping players on track, we have a really cool map system that indicates where all of your quest objectives are so you can use that to know where to go. We have a lot of different transportation methods in the game (speeders and landspeeders) that can allow you to get from one place to another really quickly. You have your ability to jump back to the starting location in the world if you want to. We made it pretty easy to navigate the gigantic worlds."

JO: The game is not linear single-player. Alderaan is 7-8 World of Warcraft Zones in size. Phasing is used, but it is not everywhere.
DE: Phasing is used to ensure pivotal plot points are immersive. No lines to fight bosses. Everything to Cloud City an example - Luke goes off to fight Vader alone. (cloud city not mentioned as in game, only as example)"

"200+ Hours of game play per character"

But I heard TOR is against open worlds and are only focused on story?
No. The question asked was, "Where do you see online games going in the next 10 years?" His answer was to bring the RPG more heavily into the MMORPG.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/03...lop/#continued

What are the playable classes and what is the advanced class system?
"Of the 8 classes each splits into 2 Sub or Advance classes, each of which has 2 specific talent trees per sub class plus one more which is a shared tree between the two Advance Classes"

Republic
-Jedi Knight:
Jedi Sentinel (Roles: Close Range Damage Dealing. Wields dual Lightsabers)
Jedi Guardian (Roles: Close Range Damage Dealing, Tanking. Wields a single Lightsaber)

-Jedi Consular:
Jedi Shadow (Roles: Close - Mid Range Damage Dealing, Tanking)
Jedi Sage (Roles: Mid-Long Range Damage Dealing, Healing)

-Trooper:
Vanguard (Roles: Close - Mid Range Damage Dealing, Ranged Tanking)
Commando (Roles: Mid - Long Range Damage Dealing, Healing)

-Smuggler:
Gunslinger (Roles: Mid - Long Range Damage Dealing, wields dual pistols)
Scoundrel (Roles: Close - Mid Range Damage Dealing, Healing, wields scatter gun)

Empire
-Sith Warrior:
Sith Marauder (Roles: Close Range Damage Dealing. Wields dual Lightsabers)
Sith Juggernaut (Roles: Close Range Damage Dealing, Tanking. Wields a single Lightsaber)

-Sith Inquisitor:
Sith Assassin (Roles: Close - Mid Range Damage Dealing, Tanking)
Sith Sorcerer (Roles: Mid-Long Range Damage Dealing, Healing)

-Bounty Hunter:
Mercenary (Roles: Mid - Long Range Damage Dealing, Healing)
PowerTech (Roles: Close - Mid Range Damage Dealing, Tanking)

-Imperial Agent:
Sniper (Roles: Mid - Long Range Damage Dealing)
Operative (Roles: Close - Mid Range Damage Dealing, Healing)

http://www.swtor.com/news/blog/20110408
http://www.swtor.com/info/systems/advanced-classes
http://www.swtor.com/info/holonet/classes

Are there raids and dungeons in TOR?
Yes. Dungeons are called flashpoints and raids are called Operations. There will be something like 15 flashpoints and 2 Operations at launch.
"We're looking at classic [endgame] systems, but we're also doing something brand new that hasn't been done in an MMO before."
http://www.swtor.com/info/systems/flashpoints
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnV9i...=youtu.be&hd=1 -Operation teaser trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJS5HZyClZQ - 1st live demo!

How about PvP?
There are Warzones. There are both pvp and pve servers. There will be open world PvP. Only glimpses have been shown thus far.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6raRC6yvmw
http://www.swtor.com/media/trailers/video-documentary-4

World bosses?
There will be world bosses that will require more than a 4 man team to take down.
http://tor-talk.com/wp-content/uploa.../03/rancor.png

Is there crafting?
Yes. Your companions work with you gathering and crafting. It is part of the Crew Skills.
It doesn't make sense for Darth Vader to skin womp rats for a new pair of boots in between conquering worlds "You are the hero, you make your crew work for you."
Wait. What, you don't craft, your companions do? "The part that is not terribly exciting is standing in one spot and watching a progress bar over and over and over again. And that's literally all that we removed." "Though companions are vital to The Old Republic and the Crew Skills system, we do know that some players want to be the primary crafter for all their crafted items", "It is worth noting players will definitely need to be directly involved in the process when learning rare schematics"

"It will not be to the extent of some of the games out there, like [Star Wars] Galaxies. It will be very similar to what WoW has." "We are going to have crafting, because that's a big part of MMOs. We're going to implement crafting in a way that 'feels' right for Star Wars."

"If you wish to do the harvesting/gathering yourself you can. Its not limited to your companions "

"Crafting is based on time invested more than XP level. Do not expect to decide to become a Master Crafter over a weekend, it will not happen "

"The perception of many that social aspects like crafting and banking are limited only to your ship is wrong. There are a very small number of things that are ship based only activities."
http://www.swtor.com/info/systems/crew-skills

Are there guilds?
Yes, and you can set them up prelaunch!
http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20110309
http://www.swtor.com/info/systems/guilds

So it has all the endgame concepts that other MMOs have?
As far as we can tell and what we have heard, yes.

I've seen some videos where animations and artwork were really bad. What's up with that?
Early artwork before rendering. There are videos that highlight this more later. The art is constantly improving. These are typically some of the last things done to a game. Expect more good things to begin rolling in.

I heard there is space combat?
It is more or less a mini game you can do. It is not mandatory, nor is it a key element of the game. It plays like a rail shooter. Think Star Fox.
http://www.swtor.com/info/systems/space-combat

Is there player housing?
Your ship is your main base of operations. You can invite other players into your ship. Your companions hang out here as well.
http://www.swtor.com/media/trailers/...s-old-republic

What about guild halls?
"Player housing/guild halls?
JO: Guild capital ship highly requested. Maybe at release, if not soon after.
DE: Ships replace housing for us. No one hangs at Leia's house. Probably won't make it into release."
Ask A Jedi: At gamescom last year, you dropped a little hint about the possibility of guild capital ships. Is there any update you can give us on that?

James Ohlen: That's definitely on the wish list! Every single one of my senior designers loves that idea. All the way back in 2006 that was brought up in design. I was the mean design manager who was like "we have to finish a game here, we can't have ridiculous features like guild capital ships for launch! and they would say "we can get it in!

The community can know that almost every one of my senior designers is on the side of doing it. I'm pretty sure its eventually going to get in the game, because they'll beat me up until I promote it to the next feature. If it's not in for ship, it will definitely be a patch down the road."

You get companion characters?
For those of you familiar with Bioware games, you get companions that accompany you, help with fighting, talking, romancing, crafting, etc. There are a lot of things the companions do. You a caster and need a tank to solo quest? Grab a tanking companion. New info rolling in suggests that companions are amazing.
http://www.swtor.com/info/systems/companions

What Planets are there?
There are 17 total, plus there are space stations and such all around.
http://www.swtor.com/info/holonet/planets

Community Q&A Monthly
Q&A is after the intial Studio insider Blog. Just scroll down.
http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20110318
http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20110415
http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20110520
http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20110715

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Random quotes and interviews:

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PAX Q&A:

-After listening to the transcription, we have issued a correction to this post. In an effort to clear up the, as warned, rough/paraphrased quote we have added the direct transcription of James Ohlen's statement regarding Companions - James Ohlen: "So right now and this is something that can change in testing with feedback, right now we are aiming to not allow companions into endgame raids and flashpoints. We are also currently not allowing them into Warzones, one of the reasons is that these kinds of activities -- raids, flashpoints, and warzones they are all very much about player skill and the difference between losing and victory is so slim that when something goes wrong you want it to be the player's fault not the fact that the companion's AI was two seconds too slow. It's the reason why hunters aren't very popular with their pets WoW raids. It's impossible currently to create an AI that is as good as a player." Thanks to ShavedEwok for sending the video in. We will have a full transcription soon for the other points seen below.
-No clown armor. You equip different color armor. There is an optional "colormatch" that will even out color.
-Added world boss to Nar Shaddaa
-World boss will take "more than a full group to take down."
-Companion romance arcs are very diverse with "dozens of arcs"
-Some are classic romances while others are bad relationship with one even cheating on you "after romancing her you will come back to your ship and see a guy leaving it."
-Smugglers have the most romance arcs
-IAs have the most sexual options (related IA to James Bond)
-No non-contextual holidays. (no Christmas, no Thanksgiving, etc.) Only Star Wars holidays.
-Phasing question. There is no full zone phasing. Only room phasing to keep groups together.
-You return to origin world after you get high level. It inspires low levels to see high levels.
-Ranged classes have snares and melee abilities to even the playing field with melee.
-Will a threat meter be integrated? Not currently but we plan to add more functions before and after launch.
-All origin worlds are off limits to opposing faction.
-We are not adding a sidekick system because it ruins story but we may consider a mentor system to let friends play together some time in the future.
-Will you support third party add ons? "We can't talk about that right now."
-Open world PvP will be talked about soonish.
-Flashpoints are spaced out evenly from leaving origin to max level.
-Why make a tunnel shooter over space sim? That would be an astoundingly vast undertaking for a team already making one of the biggest games ever.
-Will morality alter skills? It will have an impact but it will not cripple a Sith Inquisitor if you go light side or hurt a Trooper who goes Dark.

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Darth Hater interview:

(General things from PAX East '11. Flashpoints, dialogue, space combat, speeders and taxis, advance class and everyone being pvp viable)
http://darthhater.com/2011/03/13/pax...len-interview/

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Massively.com

Changing a doubter's mind
"There are many things that can distract you from actually playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. Who wouldn't be distracted by the incredible layered scenery? I'd think the spot-on animations would make you want to attack more, although it is possible that you could attack the wrong target. Perhaps it was the vivid facial expressions that would cause someone to not make a dialogue choice. These have to be the reasons behind the fact that the Jedi Knight on our team completely failed to do his job in one of the most incredibly polished games and easy-to-slide-into games I have have ever played."

"I noted another player in the room who was not in our group, suggesting that this area appears to be shared. Take that, people who don't believe this is an MMO... wait! That was me."

"Taral V was a great instance to reveal to the general public where the game stands mechanically. It also gave the audience a chance to see the MMO side of the game and the multiplayer dialogue system. The UI was pretty good. I did, however, find myself staring at it more than the action on the screen. Perhaps that is the nature of being a healer. I did have tremendous amount of fun despite not winning the flashpoint. Thank you, BioWare. I cannot wait to play it again!"

http://i.massively.joystiq.com/2011/...wtors-taral-v/

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Massively

"You can't know how a game is going to play at release based on just a single instance, but you can certainly make a reasonable guess. That thought kept moving through my head as I mulled over my play session for Star Wars: The Old Republic -- a positive thought, given how polished and comfortable the game felt from the second I sat down to play. I was expecting to see something much rougher around the edges, but what I wound up with felt like a finished game already."

"Visually, the game was a treat right off. The graphics have been tightened up and refined nicely, and everything moved fluidly. A few animations from the trailers have looked a touch stiff, but that isn't conveyed when you get to playing. The entire flashpoint was also filled with some impressive incidental graphics and surrounding events, keeping a sense of urgency up as your team moves forward."

"Star Wars: The Old Republic is an immensely polished, clean, and playable game. It imports elements from the familiar formula of MMO design, but the elements are handled with a grace and aplomb, and they feel natural. For a game that's several months out from launch, it seems to be playing and working astonishingly well. It's not full to the brim with revolutionary elements, but even the classic elements are both refreshing and well-organized. If there was any negative takeaway from the event, it was the simple fact that the game isn't out yet."

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/03...rs-taral-v-p2/

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What has Blizzard had to say about SWTOR?

"It's "a fact" that BioWare's recently announced MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic will be great, Blizzard has said."
http://www.videogamer.com/pc/wow/new..._blizzard.html

"World of Warcraft developer Blizzard Entertainment has wished their soon to be MMO rivals, EA and LucasArts, good luck with its forthcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO. Blizzard are banking on the BioWare-developed SW:TOR to breathe new life into the MMO genre, benefiting everyone.

The company’s co-founder and Executive Vice President, Frank Pearce, tells MCV in an interview that, "This is a game that has an opportunity to grow the MMO market if done right and therefore is very important to the industry as a whole, not just EA."
http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/8...s-mmo-success/

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A decent poll at the main site showing class and race choice:

www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=294680

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Ask a Jedi PAX interview:
Guild System, Guild Progression, Possibility of Web/Mobile Tools, Achievements, Advanced Class Swapping, Melee vs. Range Combat, Cover, Guild Capital Ships, User Interface & Customization, Mac Support, Crew Skills & “Critting” During Crafting, and more!

http://www.askajedi.com/2011/03/14/p...8Ask+A+Jedi%29

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SWTOR has around 1.5 million people opted into Beta testing

http://www.starwarsmmolevelingguide....a-subscribers/

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Building a Flash Point

"The Death Star was a Flashpoint. Luke and Obi-wan spent a few minutes LFG in the Mos Eisley Cantina where they enlisted the aid of Han Solo and Chewbacca. Together, they infiltrated a moon-sized battle station to rescue Princess Leia. Things didn't go quite as they expected; difficult choices were made along the way. That's a Flashpoint in a nutshell.

Think of the Death Star – Luke and his friends didn’t wander around aimlessly shooting Imperials. They had a plan: rescue the princess, deactivate the tractor beam, and escape in the Millennium Falcon. Of course, things didn’t go quite as planned. They had to deal with a legion of Stormtroopers and a dianoga in the garbage compactor. Before they could escape, Obi-Wan was killed in a confrontation with Vader. Maybe next time you won’t split the party, Kenobi."

http://www.swtor.com/news/blog/20110204

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Crew Skills/ crafting interviews and explanations

http://darthhater.com/2010/11/12/fri...e-crew-skills/
http://darthhater.com/2010/11/12/dan...n-crew-skills/
http://darthhater.com/2010/11/17/dan...lls-continued/

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Not really TOR, but I know there are more than a few Steam Punk fans here. How about a Star Wars take on it?

http://bjornhurri.cghub.com/images/
http://www.sillof.com/C-Steampunk-SW.htm

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Strategies for Successfully Running an MMO from Launch and Beyond

http://darthhater.com/2010/10/08/gdc...ch-and-beyond/

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AngryJoeShow gets an interview

He's kinda dumb, but he does ask some decent questions

http://angryjoeshow.com/2010/06/swtor-interview/

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A player review and why the combat feels different

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=285080

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Armor Progession sneak peaks

Bounty Hunter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhO9H6FH8Vc
Jedi Knight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlCPQ...mbedded#at=129
Sith Warrior: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA5pS...layer_embedded
Trooper: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmROl...layer_embedded

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Why did TOR decide to go with full character Voice Over?
Did you ever wonder what the initial plan for the game and dialogue entailed? How was it that they thought full VO was the way to go. In this interview from CRR, Daniel Erickson explains how it all came to be from 2:10-5:08.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fgTbBUbuT8

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Happy April Fools Day:

2010-Sarlacc Enforcerhttp://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20100401_001
2011-Wookie languagehttp://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20110401
Things that are hidden updates in the Shyriiwook Localization prank:
Companion UI
Emotes
Facial expressions

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Here are some player reviews after the EU event on 4/5/11:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=292974

If you want to read an excellent review, and don't mind a huge wall of text, read Kandycane's review on page 42.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showt...292974&page=42

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Article on SWTOR, sandbox and themepark style MMOs

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g...-or-Worse.html

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No Swimming for the release of TOR

Here's what was said by the devs:
-Swimming will not be in TOR for ship. It is not a 'free feature' we turned off and is actually a huge amount of animation, pathfinding and AI work. Either every creature in the game needs to have water moving/fighting animations and AI to handle 3D movement or combat has to stop in the water with all the AI craziness that having safe zones you can jump in and out of entails. We have nothing against swimming but it’s never going to outrank improving combat, Companion AI or any of our other core features.

As Daniel said - and elaborated on - swimming was not an easy feature to implement in SWTOR. The inclusion of swimming was weighed against other features and was cut for launch. That doesn't mean it might not be re-considered for the future, but right now, it's not in.
We've seen the feedback and we'll continue to monitor it, but right now, don't expect it at launch.

There's no rigid wall in the game at this point. You walk in shallow water, it becomes deeper as you progress, and at some point you start getting the message that you should turn back. You can continue on and ultimately drown (then respawn) or move back.
In order for swimming to be actually worth the implementation and time, we'd want to do it right - meaning content built around it, maybe a water centric planet, etc. Absent that content - there are no water worlds in this game - we've decided to focus on other things that are more important to us.
I can definitely see why people like swimming (or any other feature for that matter), however, the decision to put a feature like that in the game cannot be solved with a simple yes/no poll. In reality, the question is more like “Do you want swimming or 'feature X'”. In this case, we chose feature X (or Y, or Z) for a number of reasons - one being that just adding a very basic version of swimming without building proper content around isn't something we wanted to focus on for launch.
We'll definitely look at this again later, after launch, but if we were to decide to do it, it'd be accompanied with proper content and mechanics themed around it.

Additionally, since this is a design decision made a long time ago, there is no reason for you to endlessly walk into the water as well. There's just no content out there that would require you to do that. We don't want you to run around in the deep water, it exists as a soft planet boundary - not as adventuring space.

Realism does not necessarily equate immersion. Sometimes it can help it along, but sometimes it can fight it, and there are definitely different ways for players to get that goal.
A sense of immersion often comes from a sense of flow, from a sense that players are in the experience fully and totally. You certainly can be immersed in the realness of, say, the lush islands in Crysis. You also can be immersed in the pure action of Quake or even a really good run in Tetris. It’s all about how smoothly the experience feeds into itself and into your own perceptions.
My experience with swimming in most MMOs (and in fact, most other games) has not been particularly immersive. They are usually along the lines of "Where am I getting shot from? Why is my map useless? How far away is my target, really? Can I escape this fight swimming at this pokey speed? Why do my combat moves look so janky? Why does my pet look janky? Why is pathfinding janky? Why is navigating my character around tight spaces so difficult? Why does the game let players use jumping in and out of water to exploit? Where is there a designer I can punch in the throat?”
When you’re having experiences like that, you’re not in the game, you’re instead an angry and frustrated person staring at a keyboard. Failures in these areas don’t feel like challenges you couldn’t overcome, they feel like places where the game robbed you. When you start having these reactions, you are not immersed.
Doing swimming poorly is hard. Doing swimming very well (i.e. solving all of the problems above and then building the content to really take advantage of it) is very hard. BioWare is not a company that prides itself on halfway solutions typically. We’d prefer to swing for the fences - if we decide to take a feature, do it well. We don’t always succeed, mind you, but that’s the intent.

We’re not other games. And none of those 'other games' have the same feature set as each other, anyway. Each of them has had a different design philosophy, a different focus, a different set of problems to deal with, etc. And ours will be different still.

There are a lot of features that these games have that we don’t have. There are a lot of features we have that they don’t have – and likely never will. Features have a substantial cost – not just a cost to develop, in this case, but a cost to design, worldbuild, build art for, QA and support for years to come. The senior design leads spend a lot of time comparing the various features, and figuring out what will make the best package of combined features – i.e. the experience that we call the game.
Because really, no feature exists in a vacuum. It’s all good and well to say “This game must have Baby Seal Clubbing because game XXX had Baby Seal Clubbing 10 years ago and so this game is going to be like one built by primitive cavemen designers who had no idea of the magic of Baby Seal Clubbing!” But the MMO genre is so established now that the possibility space for features is very large, and no, not all of them will make it in. For every feature, there’s a lot more discussion that happens amongst the designers. Does this feature support or fight the other features in the game? Does the feature highlight what we’re trying to do, or elevate the IP, or serve part of the populace that is currently underserved? Put shortly, is this feature right for the game? Or is there a better place we can spend all those resources to make something truly magical?
Because at the end of the day, we’re not trying to make 'just another MMO but with lightsabers'. We don’t want to blindly include features because some of our competitors are doing so. We want SWTOR to be its own experience and its own identity, and this occasionally means doing things differently and taking some chances.
Does this mean that Baby Seal Clubbing will make it in? Well, I fought for it, but no.

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Datacrons are spread throughout the open world

They are an exploartion reward. Here's what the devs said:
-Datacrons are, in fact, spread all over TOR in hard to reach places, do appear on your map if you’re close enough, have some awesome history pieces for your codex, are very hard to get (I’ve only gotten a couple ever in playing) and do permanently increase your stats. Kudos to Kandycane for being the first person I’ve ever seen to get one at an event. Explorer badge!

Just to clarify a few things here, to avoid unnecessary panic attacks.
We put a lot of focus in SWTOR on making your character's journey mean something.
We're trying to eliminate grinding as much as possible, make your character's story matter and give you meaningful things to do on your way through the game.
We're also not shying away from rewarding or encouraging certain activities. The primary example, of course, being story. It's very hard to ignore, definitely not something we consider optional. It's hard to convey to people just how much impact it has on our game, but if you look at the feedback from all our recent events, people usually walk away surprised by just how powerful of an impact the feature has.
Exploration is another example. Exploration is an optional activity, but it is encouraged. If you choose to play just along the critical path, you can beat the game, have a good time, but you will find it is not necessarily the path of least resistance either:
Without exploring the world and stumbling on unique treasures, hidden quests, codex entries, the occasional world boss or encampment of rebels, you will be missing out not only on equipment rewards, XP, chances to further affection with your companion or build your alignment... but also you will deprive yourself of some very interesting stories
Datacrons are an exploration reward.

Yes, their effects are permanent, however they are also predetermined (there are X datacrons with exactly these effects, not randomized) so we can ensure they are balanced and luck has nothing to do with their effect. Their locations are fixed, not randomized and they don't 'spawn', meaning they will always be there for your character when you get to the location.
We're not talking about people having to find the 99 hidden flowers on each planet or something like that; the number of datacrons is small, scaling with the size of the planet. Think single digits. Not the kind of thing you would usually associate with grinding.
Do they matter? In the grand scheme of things, sure, they'll matter. How much? That depends what type of player you are. If you are in pursuit of the most optimized character ever, you will probably want to pick them up, but most people will probably do just fine with finding just a handful of them.
If you are not an explorer - no big deal - datacrons always stay accessible to you, so you can't lock yourself out of them and you can come back and pick them up later in the game when you have your comfy personal transport to get around in.
In short - we think it's a feature that adds to the game, that rewards going off the beaten path and discovering the wonders we put all over the worlds.

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More playable races?

PC Gamer UK printed an article featuring the "current" playable classes.

Human: Trooper, Knight, Consular, Smuggler, Agent, Inquisitor, Warrior, Bounty Hunter.
Cyborg: Trooper, Smuggler, Agent, Warrior, Bounty Hunter
Rattataki: Agent, Inquisitor, Bounty Hunter
Chiss: Agent, Bounty Hunter
Mirialan: Trooper, Knight, Consular, Smuggler.
Twi'lek: Knight, Consular, Smuggler, Inquisitor.
Zabrak: Trooper, Knight, Consular, Smuggler, Agent, Inquisitor, Warrior, Bounty Hunter.
Pureblood: Warrior, Inquisitor
Miraluka: Knight, Consular

Daniel Erickson said:
"Hey Folks,
The species/class combo list you're referencing is not accurate. If it does appear in the magazine, that's unfortunate.
My guess is that an enthusiastic member of the press wrote down everything he saw in the character creation screen which, as we’ve stated often, is nowhere near final. Occasionally we’ll have species in odd classes or in all classes because of a bug or testing.
Hope that helps!"

Maybe only 1 class/race combo is wrong, maybe a lot of them are. It's also been thought by posters that the cyborg isn't truly a class, but rather the product of the personal background story. We won't know for a while.

http://syntaxerror.org.uk/images/swtor-races2.jpg

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German Buffed magazine translations
Some cool things here. The link is in german, a translation of parts of it is below.
http://www.buffed.de/Buffed-Magazin-...-Kiosk-820588/

Before I start let me tell you that I'm not 100% sure about what's new and what's already known.
Also I have to say that the article from the buffed.de magazine contains some spoilers of the BH's story but I won't post those. All I can say is that I got goosebumps while reading a quest description, huge storytelling.
Once more I can say that the article is really worth reading.
Now let's start!
The event at BW Austin/Texas took place from the 14th to 18th March with 2 whole days of playing SW:TOR.
Invited to the event were a total of 7 journalists from the USA, UK, Germany and France.
The guy from buffed.de was able to play a BH up to lvl 15 and every journalist played the Alderaan Warzone with a preset lvl 20 char.

General:
- A player will need 200 hours average to reach lvl 50.
- There are different endings for the main story arc, depending on which decisions you'll make through the game ("Career or Vengeance").
- You can travel from Nal Hutta to Dromund Kaas either by shuttle or by flashpoint.
- You will get your own spaceship on Dromund Kaas after the end of a storyline (quest) and be able to travel freely through the galaxy, via the galaxy map on your ship, afterwards. Same should be for the SW and SI that start on Korriban.
- There are "heroic" group quest areas on Dromund Kaas.
- According to Devs, story quests will be instanced to prevent that, e.g. a group of 4 BH won't rush through the storyline.
- Classic combat system but it feels quite dynamic.
- The classic combat system was chosen intentionally because the motion system like DCU, GW2, AOC etc. was technically complicated and risky.
- Georg Zöller: "Experiments yes, but with a sense of proportions.".

Companions:
- Mako is a healer and will be the first companion for the BH.
- Droid PO-12 will be the second companion for the BH and he will get this companion along with his ship, the D5-Mantis, on Dromund Kaas.
- You are not forced to skill dps while leveling to make progress because of your companions and their different roles. Meaning that you can level as a healer and let a dps companion do all the damage.
- Companions have different stances like heal, dps, etc.
- You can determine which skills will be used by your companions.
- It is also possible to use your companion skills manually.
- Companions "Almost as strong as other players.".
- Companions are fully equippable with armor, weapons, etc.
- Companions are able to learn skills at a trainer.
- Companions can, beside to craft something for you, also be used as a vendor e.g. to sell grey crap loot etc.
About the strength of companions, he wrote: "Compared to the average MMO pets, the companions in the Old Republic are clearly more diverse and almost capable of being a real teammate when it's coming to action.".
Most of his playtime, he played with another journalist together which played an Imperial Agent, they both had a companion with them.
Note that he only played the early Flashpoint "Black Talon" which is between Nal Hutta and Dromund Kaas where he also did some group quests.
So keep in mind that no one, except BioWare, really knows for sure how strong a companion will be at max lvl.

PvP:
- BioWare wants to handle PvP Servers "traditional".
- Alderaan is a domination map.
- Warzone: The Voidstar will have a conquest mode.
- Some planets will have contested areas where both factions will fight for control.
- There is a CC-immunitybar which will fill up through suffered CC until you're completely immune to CC.
- This bar is placed below the healthbar and can also be seen by players of the other faction.
- Tank skilled PCs are useful in PvP too, since they're able to absorb 50% dmg taken by party members.
- There are PvP ranks.
- There is no gear that could be purchased because of your PvP rank but there are possibilities "to interfere in combat".
(personal note by VdFExarKun: I have absolute no idea what that means, I can only imagine that you will be able to purchase something like a battlestandard to boost HP or something to boost dps or w/e if you have the required rank for it, something similiar to WoW's vanilla requirements on PvP items. Also the second part of the german sentence with the quotation is quite confusing to translate.)

In regards to the domination map of Alderaan, the buffed.de journalist wrote that you'll have 3 tactical points on the map to take control of. When you're in control of at least 2 points, the enemy battleship, which has some amount of "HP", will get damage (probably from the turbolasers we've seen in the Warzone trailer) and lose its "HP" until it is destroyed.
Gabe Amatangelo didn't reveal the actual number of Warzones that will be in the game at launch.
Auto-facing wasn't mentioned in the article.
I hope that I didn't forget something.

Instances: PVE & PVP

Flashpoints (PVE)

Dungeons would be an inappropriate term for some instances in a sci-fi MMO, and why Bioware has named their group PvE adventures Flashpoints. So far, we received information to five Flash Points: At level 10 you fight either on the space ship Black Talon (Empire) or the nettle (Republic of), so that the other side does not agree with an important secret military support in his power. At about level 25 you decide to "Taral V " (Empire) or the Flash Point "boarding party" over the fate of a captive Jedi. With level 50 to beat both sides of a rebellion in the deadly droids Flash Point "Directive 7" down.

Warzones (PVP)

War zones, these are the PvP Battlegrounds translated in The Old Republic. So far, only one was known and that the civil war on Alderaan (more on page 18), but now Bioware still has the PvP battleground "The Voidstar" announced that will offer a Conquest mode. More will follow as we lead designer told PvP month, Gabe.

(top left caption) Surrounded on all sides: as "mercenaries" specialized bounty hunter fully prepared to work with two arms and hand out high damage against multiple opponents.

(top right caption) Good pairing: bounty hunters and Imperial agents share the starting area on the planet Nal Hutta.

(bottom left caption) Ice Cold Killer: The Rattataki are among those peoples who can play as a bounty hunter.

Can The Old Republic with his story focus, and the dialogues vollvertonten Star Wars license to the top dog WoW stand up to offer? This is the central question the community is moving. Expected appears the sci-fi MMO in the second half of 2011 and no later than the beginning 2012 and since with the renowned software forging Bioware is developing is the expectations of all the greater.

So far, the public got, however, only see short excerpts. Time was allowed the press, a handful of quests in a start location solve, then briefly in the first instance. Get a first taste screenshots video clips on the website also scratch only on the surface, a complete Image not found. But no more! Bioware has reconsidered its policy bites and at last given the opportunity two full days in the far, far away to spend galaxy. And the journey to Austin, Texas, where the developer studio is has paid off.

Beginning of a legend ***Minor Spoliers ahead***
At the opening of the event in which only seven Journalists from the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany will participate, Bioware gives us Lead Writer Daniel Erickson a short briefing on what to us expected both days: We start with a Bounty hunter or Imperial Agent at Level 1 and shall so play much as we come in two days. There is a session in the PvP warzone with Alderaan Level-20 characters planned! For the first time so we would compete against other players on an instanced battleground, more on that later.
At the end of the briefing we move to space in which eight computers are set up. Wait for the left four computers already Imperial agent on her first assignment, on the right PC-quartet are bounty hunters ready - we choose the mercenary assassin. The Adventures of Boba Fett's ancestors is known to start on Nal Hutta, the home world of the Hutts, a kind of criminal giant snails the business of smuggling, theft and murder is. A group of experienced NPC bounty hunter has us as a junior partner recorded. Braden, the leader is, of convinced that we have what it takes to participate in the Great Hunt.
This is not a weekend getaway with the aim of a few shooting Womp rats. The Great Hunt is organized by Mandalorians, a nomadic warrior cult, made up of various species composed. So different look Mandalorians, they are so united in their quest, the produce greatest warriors in the galaxy - The so-called "Mand'alor. To recruit with enough potential to they stage the Great Hunt. As a bounty hunter so you have in The Old Republic the opportunity at the end of the main story in.
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USA PC Gamer thoughts after 2 days of play

Article Summary
- Bioware manages to differentiate the Jedi starting area from the Agent starting area.
- Bioware has done an impressive job of replicating the lifestyle of a secret agent.
- There are still a lot of kill-and-deliver quests, but there was usually a more in-depth class quest which added more meaning to the area.
-Example: "When I was sent to sabotage the power factory..., I ran into a small outpost of downtrodden locals. If I was headed into the facility anyways, why not earn a few extra credits by stealing some power generators and stomping a few bad-guy faces for 'em"
-"Tales of TOR's focus on story have not been exaggerated: it's immediately apparent that this is a BioWare game. "
-Kaliyo reminds the reviewer of Morrigan: "dark, sexy and disapproving of everything I did"
-Cover activated by holding Shift. This highlights cover locations; you can tap R to roll into the one you're looking at.
-Cover is NOT a flat percent-damage reduction. If you're behind it when someone shoots at you, it misses completely. If you're shooting, you're going to get hit. Cover degrades as it gets shot, and some abilities are designed specifically to shoot over cover or knock you out of it.
-Cover-exclusive abilities (like Snipe- "a high damage ability with a long cast time", Suppressive Fire- "a channeled spray-and-pray technique that hits all targets in front of you randomly", and Explosive Probe- "Sends a small probe to the target that explodes the next time they're hit").
-"Fighting is all about rhythm"
-"Solo Conversation" mode, which allows players to enter conversations alone, even when grouped.
-Kaas City is interesting- "it takes a very interesting twist that involves rival Sith Lords, terrorist cells plotting to destroy the city and a cult of Revanites"
-Crew Skills- Archeology (Gathering skill, able to mine crystal nodes and three rotating missions that the writer could send their companion on- example is a dead Sarlacc), Underworld Trading (spices), and Treasure Hunters (previously announced).

Impressions
-Overall, very positive experience- "I'm thrilled. My enthusiasm for TOR is completely renewed"
-"Companions are the key to enhancing TOR's roleplaying experience"
-"The RPG side of TOR reminds me of Dragon Age: Origins... and the game's PvP system feels like an upgraded version of Warhammer Onlines"
-"I'm starting to believe that BioWare can pull off this massive undertaking- the most hyped and biggest-budget MMO of all time- and if they do, just about everyone will have a compelling reason to play it"

Agent Skill Trees
Sniper
-Marksmanship- cover-based, "take out your enemies from a safe distance"
-Ability- Snap shot- Rolling into cover makes your next snipe instant cast.
-Engineering- "This one's all about controlling pet probes"
-Ability- Detonate probes- Blows up all probes.
Operative
-Concealment- "Stealth and daggers"
-Ability- Waylay- Detonates flash bomb and charge at a distant enemy, attacking them instantly and boosting next attack by 20%.
-Medic- "favorite playstyle", heals allies with probes and bact-syringe guns.
-Ability- Kolto Probe- Sends healing droid to target and stacks up to three times, like the Lifebloom spell for WoW's Druid.
Both
-Lethality- Adds venoms to melee and blaster attacks.
-Ability- Seeker Probes- Sends out probes to target, poisoning everyone around them.

PvP
Combat
-Tanks guard allies and taunt enemies to reduce their damage output on anyone other than the tank
-No player collision
-Deflected damage, taunted enemies, and other effects will be shown visually
-When players are crowd-controlled, their resolve bar fills up. Once it maxes out, player is immune to CC.
-Pace of combat is manageable- no instant kills or burst damage.
-Cover mechanic combined with medic agent is very fun and unique.
-No companions in PvP.

Rewards
-Valor identical to Warhammer's Renown, an alternate PvP levelling system.
-Badge system similar to Halo: Reach rewards for streaks of success.
-Healing and damage absorption is tracked in the match stats to promote and reward tanks and healers.
-Players can "commend" favorite teamates to give them bonus rewards.
-Seperate PvP gear sets while leveling and at max level.

Ships
-Main Room- Contains central computer and Holocom for both players and NPCs.
-Medical Bay- Bacta tank and bed.
-Escape Hatch- Unkown use in space combat.
-Captain's Quarters- No fish tank.
-Cockpit- contains galactic map.
-Engine Room- Shiny equipment, but no interaction so far.
-Mission Terminal- Contains quests that encourage you to do activities taht you haven't tried in a while, such as PvP.
-Companions- each have their own section of the ship
There are a bunch of new screens in the issue as well, but I won't post scans as that may be a bit of a no-no.

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No Dual Spec at launch
Are people to accustomed to the WoW and Rift's instant gratification, or is Bioware simply leaving out options. The community is torn. (This might be implimented later on, and i'm pretty sure it will.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=303181

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10 things that make TOR stand out
As written by my fellow guild member:
1. Putting the RPG back into MMORPG. Story story story: In most games, their idea of a story is quest text and fan made website databases. SWTOR not only gives a unique personalized story for each class, but gives you choices in how you complete quests. Think single player quality quests in a mmo environment.

2. Fully voiced: Not something totally new, but being totally 100% voiced changes the flow of how the story is presented. This isn't someone just reading the quest text to you, or yelling to the masses about what's going on in front of you. It lets the story come out in smaller pieces along the way, and adds a depth that we have never seen in an MMO.

3. LS/DS/Grey system: We don't know exactly how it works yet, but the morality system allows for more character customization, as well as quest choices. You don't have to do what the guy next to you did!

4. No invisible walls/loading screens (aside from going from planet to planet, but a cinematic takes the place of a loading screen): The idea is to make you feel like you are in a large world with others. There's no need to look at an uninteresting loading screen when a ship takes you to another place. There are no magical invisible walls blocking you from drowning or jumping over a ridge.

5. Cover system: A new way for ranged to fight. Instead of just kiting all the time, lightly armored ranged characters can hide behind objects to not just LoS things, but to actually shoot from a protected state. An interesting idea considering most npcs in this setting will probably have a gun.

6. Personal starships: A mix of personal housing and a space combat mini-game. Quite a unique solution to both systems.

7. Companions: Not only do these "pets" add to your story, crafting system, and character customization. They add a whole new way to level characters. Healers and tanks can learn their role from level 1 because they will be in a group with their companion even when solo. Exactly how they will work in groups is still being worked out, but in some way or another they will help fill in missing roles in groups.

8. Crew system (quite a unique system for crafting): Crafting without the grinding? Yep. You can do all the work yourself if you really like flying around in circles looking for flowers to pick, but if you don't you can send your companions to farm mats, make items, or even go off on missions.

9. Cinematic combat: Unlike most other MMOs where you have 1 generic animation for each action (different for different races and genders maybe), and sometimes even repeated animations. Here we see jedi blocking attacks from different angles and characters getting knocked backwards mid jump, etc. The subtle animations are amazing to see and make you appreciate the depth that the team took it to.

10. Ranged tanks: In WoW these only showed up as gimmicks in fight mechanics. In this game you can have your main tank shooting from afar, standing toe to toe, or maybe even kiting, all depending on what enemy you are facing, instead of having to poke the boss's toe with a sword. Again an interesting idea considering so many enemies in this game will be ranged.

And 5 more courtesy of Bane123
I'll give you just 5 reasons why it's different from WoW

1. No auto attack. You might say meh that's not really a reason, but coming from a person who played melee characters for the majority of WoW, I'd see that as a noticeable difference when playing, as i'll have to be actively engaged in fighting or else i would most likely die unless my companion is good enough to take out the whole group for me. Whatever damage you do is a result of what abilities you use, no more white hits on your damage meters hehe.

2. Fully voiced NPCs. That's pretty huge in an MMO where there are tons of different characters that you'd encounter out in the world and even your own character has a voice of his/her own. Daniel Erickson the lead writer for the game stated that there are hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue present in the game, and enough to fill 50-60 novels. That is a really huge undertaking for an MMO to do, and it will eliminate the quest text skipping that majority of the players have done in WoW and keep them actively involved/immersed in what's actually going on in the story (but there is a skip button - spacebar for those who could care less, but you still have dialogue choices based on what's being spoken in-game).

3. You don't have to farm your mats for yourself. This is true, you won't have to grind for mats any more, although you can do it if you want, but why would you do that when you have 5 companions that can do it for you? I don't know the specific numbers but i think i remember someone stating that you can send out 3 companions to gather the mats for you. You can even tell them to farm it while you're offline, so when you log on you can just get the mats with minimal effort from yourself. It makes sense because in the movies you don't see Darth Vader farming mats, he had his minions do all the grindy work for him.

4. Romance-able companion characters and NPCs. Yes you can romance your companion characters (just the humanoids - no Jawa sex!). Your companion characters have separate personalities and feelings towards your actions, and you can take advantage of that by playing with their feelings and romancing them. You can even do this with NPCs. In a leaked video from a beta tester he kissed one of his quest NPCs (the rest is unkown since it fades to black hehe). You definitely can't do that in WoW hehe.

5. The leveling is different for each class (for the most part). I remember leveling alts many times, just repeating the same quests in the zones that were the easiest to do quests over and over because it was the fastest way to level. In SW:TOR each class has a separate and distinct story that is different from the other classes that you might have played. Some people have stated that it can take 200 hours to level a class. I wouldn’t doubt it because this game is pretty much KOTOR 3 to maybe even 10 combined with the scale at which this game is being made. And beta testers have said that it feels like Vanilla WoW leveling. Different players can level at different rates but with the class stories and world story quests present in the game it can take you longer to level to 50 than it is to level from 1-85 in WoW and it will still feel different when you play a different class because you can’t repeat the same quests or repeat the same dialogue options as they are completely different. Also the dialogue choices you make which can affect your alignment (Lightside/Darkside/Neutral – Grey) can affect the type of gear you can wear and the different looks that come with it, and can give you access to different titles and the looks of your character.

Anyways the list can go on and on with the differences, but it can also go on and on if you’re just playing the game to nitpick to look for similarities that SW:TOR is to WoW. It’s similar and distinct at the same time

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DH's General things learned from fansite summit

-Crew Skills available for training in Kaas City: Cybertech (Reverse Engineering Tech which leads to creating Tech), Underworld Trading, Slicing, Bio Analysis, Bio Chem, Diplomacy, Investigation Mission, Treasure Hunting, Synthweaving, Archeology, and Artifice.
-Galactic Market Kiosk is the name of the Auction House, and encountered first on Dromund Kaas.
-Mailboxes seen in game. Can send items, credits, COD, text message.
-Trainer icon on the minimap is an upward facing caret (^). If there are new skills you can learn the icon gains a plus symbol under the caret. If you mouse over the trainer symbol it will also tell you if there are new abilities available.
-Bonus quests now show up alongside the parent quest on your map and minimap as soon as you pick one up.
-Lightsaber Enhancement, Armor Enhancement, and other Stations/Benches seen on Hutta.
-Idle banter can be heard by NPCs throughout the game. These conversations normally pertain to local events and are regularly heard from NPCs that don't offer any other dialogue.
-Cantina music heard in the palace of Nem'ro the Hutt cycles after each song. Some of the music sounds very familiar while other pieces sound completely original.
-We were unable to see the character creator, but we were told the random name generator was crafted by Daniel Erickson and is species specific.
-Estimated time to completion seen on phased areas when you mouse over the green doors. This does not appear to be accurate in this current build, because all instances were marked with estimated five minutes regardless of actual length.
-Estimated time to completion also seen when mousing over the black dialogue bubbles over players currently involved in a dialogue sequence.
-Evocii Model seen in game for the first time.
-Lore Objects are throughout the world and give you a codex entry when clicked on. These also yield a small amount of experience upon gathering.
-Class specific long duration buffs, such as Coordination for the Imperial Agent, stack. If you are in a party with four of the same class you can all buff each other, effectively giving each player a buff four times more powerful than normal.
-There are long duration buffs that are specific to Advanced Classes and these do not replace the basic class buffs. This means Sniper Imperial Agents can cast both Coordination and a special Sniper buff on themselves and their fellow party members.
-Companions start with four different abilities. The first two are Attack and Passive with the other two being a unique companion ability and a kit. The companion ability is togglable and will allow the companion to use that ability at will. The kit is an equipable companion item that adds an ability to their bar that can be swapped with other kits. The kits are not currently togglable.
-Mako starts with a Healing Mode and Concussion Round Kit (deals damage, knocks down lower tier enemies).
-Kaliyo starts with a Plasma Round Mode and Grenade Kit (deals AOE damage).
-Companion characters will taunt you if they get close to death with unique lines of dialogue.
-Some items are only equipable by companion characters. Kaliyo's Jacket is acquired during a class quest and can only be equiped by Kaliyo.
-When a companion wants to speak with you, a small dialogue bubble will appear above their picture on the companion ability bar. You can only talk with the companions in private areas like your ship and special cantina rooms.
-Companion Affection Points are added or subtracted during cutscenes depending on your choices. Notification pops up in a small blue box on the bottom of the screen.
-Companion Affection can also be increased by giving the companions gifts. This system was described as similar to the system seen in Dragon Age. We were also told that in the current build one way to get these gifts was by using the Treasure Hunting crew skill.
-Aim stat added; modifies critical chance and damage.
-Character titles can be gained by your character. Some of these titles appear to be class dependent (Agent x) while others appear to be universal (Friendly x, x the Merciless, x the Outgoing) were x is your character name. These titles appear to be connected to your dialogue choices and may also be connected to any and all other game systems.
-Social points are added whenever you win a roll in a group dialogue scene or achieve a specific objective while grouped. These appear in a small blue box on the bottom of the screen. Social points accumulate to give you new social levels or tiers.
-Can join party members in group conversations from far away via Holocom. Absent players join the conversation as a hologram. You can also start the quest conversation without party members if you do not want to wait. You are given a count of how many group members have joined in until it reaches the number your group has, at which point the conversation starts automatically.
-In the cases where you see a cut scene while on a shuttle to another location, you can press escape (same with the way it works in every other cut scene) to stop the transition to the new area.
-Player ship hangars are separated by class. For example, there's one for Bounty Hunter, Sith Warrior, etc. It should also be noted that the hangars appear on Dromund Kaas.
-PVP vendors are separated by class.
-Mako has a minor bonus to Cybertech and significant bonus to Slicing.
-Current rarities listed as Legacy, Legendary, Artifact, Prototype, Premium, Standard, and Cheap.
-Banking Terminals are available on Kaas City.
-If you are bound to another flashpoint and did not complete the flashpoint you can then synchronize your flashpoint instance id to your new group's. This allows players to join up with a new group at the beginning. This does not work the other direction though; we were unable to sync someone forward in a flashpoint they did not participate in.
-Guild tab seen during the play session. Must visit Regional Administration Office to create guild.
-You can currently only run each Flashpoint once per day.
-Disconnected icon is a Lightning Bolt.
-You can expand your inventory. First time costs 15,000 Credits.
-There is a conversation mode option for solo or multiplayer when you right click your character's portrait.
-You continue to earn experience in Flashpoints while dead as long as you don't click "Return to the Med Center."
-The optional color matching uses the primary color of your chest piece as the color to apply elsewhere. You are currently unable to use any other piece of armor to change the color of your chest piece, but this can be toggled off.
-Planets have heroic spaces that are non-instanced areas with harder then normal mobs and quests. We saw these before in isolated dungeon-like areas on Tython and Hutta, but we also discovered a large open air heroic area on Dromund Kaas.
-Mobs do not respawn in Flashpoints.
-Datacrons appear on the minimap when you are near one. They do not show up on the large map.
-The Bounty Terminal mentioned in past coverage no longer exists in the same place it did on Hutta, replaced by an NPC droid who gives you quests.
-The automated taxi system currently doesn't allow for final destination travel; possibly a bug.

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Fansite summit interviews

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrRB1...layer_embedded-Blaine Christine/Daniel Erickson Q&A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW6pd...layer_embedded-Damion Schubert Q&A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p15pE...layer_embedded-Georg Zoeller Q&A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM9qX...layer_embedded-Writer Q&A (low audio)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxKEh...layer_embedded-Damion Schubert with Ask A Jedi about Crew Skills
http://www.nowgamer.com/features/133...oper-interview-Good info about morality

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Black Talon flashpoint impressions

http://darthhater.com/2011/04/28/fan...t-impressions/
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g...t-Preview.html
http://www.torocast.com/index.php/ed...he-black-talon
http://www.askajedi.com/2011/04/29/f...t-impressions/

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Imperial Agent Impressions

http://darthhater.com/2011/04/28/fan...t-impressions/
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/review...-republic.ars/ (Also general talk)
http://torsyndicate.com/blogs/entry/...essions-SWTOUR
http://pc.ign.com/articles/116/1164414p1.html

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Multiplayer leveling is actually cool?
Kody from Curse.com gives us a glimpse of what many haven't even tried yet. Grouping.

http://www.curse.com/articles/swtor-en-news/950700.aspx

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A look at designing the UI

The process and thought that went into it, and the version they are currently using

http://www.swtor.com/news/blog/20110429

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A deeper look into Crew Skills

http://www.curse.com/articles/swtor-en-news/951192.aspx

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Bounty Hunters = Cash Machines?

Plus you have a fun perk as a mercenary out for coin; the Bounty Hunter, according to Daniel Erickson - Star Wars: The Old Republic's Lead Writer - is the only class in the game that will be able to take on and perform missions for both the Empire and the Republic. There are potential repercussions to this, but it's a very interesting mechanic. Just be careful who you work for - money isn't everything.

http://www.curse.com/articles/swtor-en-news/950545.aspx

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You into theory crafting?

The folks over at SithWarrior.com may have what you need! in addition to updating the site with new info, these guys take it to a new level in speculative theory crafting. Check 'em out!

http://www.sithwarrior.com/

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PvE and PvP fan and press Summit info

Here is a list with all the info that came out of the summits!

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=307824

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Analyst predicts 1 million active subs at the 1 year mark

Playing it safe, or being realistic? We'll see!

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/3...bs_YearOne.php

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Gamebreaker.tv has a TOR segment

It broadcasts live every Monday, and the episode is usually on the site by Tuesday. Check 'em out!

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/live/

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Gamespot covers the Sith Inquisitor

They have a short interview as well as the class video.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/starw...&mode=previews

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E3!!!

A lot of things came from E3, and instead of individually putting everything everywhere, here is a link to everything that went on at E3. =)

http://www.swtor.com/community/showt...t=340697#close

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Razor makes SWTOR products

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQfq9...layer_embedded

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Operations a go!

We recieved a teaser trailer about TOR's raids, which are being called Operations. There will be different difficulties and scalable raid sizes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4qlC...=youtu.be&hd=1

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Walk us through Tatooine!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkU_Y...=youtu.be&hd=1 -Sith Sorcerer
http://www.livestream.com/electronic...1-5270a342bebc -Bounty Hunter Powertech

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Lightside and Darkside points

As you can see, certain gear requires "light 1", light 2", etc. The screenshot shows this Trooper at light 4000, and isn't even halfway up the meter yet. Also, take note grey alignment fans, there is a small section in the middle that the mouse cursor is partially covering. Could that be the grey alignment area? Could we see gear for the dedicated grey? Only time will tell.

http://media.dhcdn.com/2011/06/7475/gsdiss16.jpg

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Is this game any good?

Let me tell you this. I can't quote any sources about this. I can't convince you I am telling the truth. If you search enough, you can find lots of this info. But many people say, "After playing TOR, I tried playing another MMO that I used to enjoy. TOR has ruined gaming for me. From level 1 and up, TOR captures what a game should be. It's amazing on many levels, but fun tops them all. I do not have the ability to have fun playing these other games now, especially after trying to make a new character to feel the difference in said game vs TOR in the early levels."

One day soon, you too, can experience this phrase. =)

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General things learned from E3

Here is Darth Hater's list of what we learned.

http://darthhater.com/2011/06/08/e3-...hings-learned/

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Starwarsmmolevelingguide shows early beta ability list

Although a lot of this info has changed since it was written, it still gives a good idea about character abilities and all that. Click the class guides link to see.
http://www.starwarsmmolevelingguide.com/

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First leaks of Collector's Edition and box art has appeared!

- Exclusive figurine of Dark Malgus by Gentle Giant
- Star Wars discs in metal case
- The diary of Master Ghost-Dural
- Map of the galaxy
- Personal authenticator
- Music CD
- Collector's Set includes high-quality 7 objects IG
- Launch rockets, shoot incendiary projectiles (some on-equip item i believe)
- Battle droids: moving by your side
- Holodancer: your projected holographic image
- Holocam: Record your adventures on video
- STAP: unique vehicle design
- Droid-mouse exclusive companion
- Exclusive Collector's Shop: Access to the platform with dynamic sales of special items.
http://www.xtralife.es/im/portadas/portada9401.jpeg

Collector's Edition: 149.99

Pre-Order Exclusive:
Early Game access
Color Stone (virtual item)

30 Days Game Time included

Limited Collector's Edition Includes:
Exclusive Gentle Giant Darth Malgus statue
Game disks collectible metal case
The Journal of Master Gnost-Dural as annotated by Satele Shan
The Old Republic galaxy map
Custom Security Authentication Key
Music of Star Wars: The Old Republic CD
High-quality Collector's Edition box

Digital Deluxe: $79.99

Pre-Order Exclusive:
Early Game access
Color Stone (virtual item)

30 Days Game Time included

Includes 5 Additional Digital Items:
Flare Gun
Training Droid
HoloDancer
HoloCam
STAP

Standard: $59.99

Pre-Order Exclusive:
Early Game access
Color Stone (virtual item)

30 Days Game Time included

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Pre-Orders are a go!

Though there are more unanswered questions now than ever...
http://www.swtor.com/preorder/faq
http://www.swtor.com/preorder

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SDCC info
Q&A info:
-No release date. Holiday season 2011. They won't release crap. They want quality.
-Weapons and armor, and cosmetic items in CE store (NOT OP to people that don't have it). It's a location in-game.
-Dozens and dozens of different colors of color crystals (more than in the movies) Pre-order crystal is gold (Yellow core with black glow) with special effects.
-Shards (instancing) Not seeing people right next to you, can be used if needed (will be used at launch), BUT, it is fully intended to NOT be used later on.
-Switching ACs are allowable! It's too harsh to players. 1st time is not too expensive. After that, much more difficult.
-Companion customization appearance is in. Not the same looking companions as everyone else. Helps immersion level. - Initial customization kits with more to come later. still work in progress.
-People that can't dedicate huge ammounts of time (hundreds of hours) can play without a grind. it's the endless Bioware role-playing game. Spend the amount of time you want to spend on it.
-Changed from shittiest to coolest speeder in looks and lvl 24, 40, 50, etc. Now is fast as shit from start and many models are in design. Let's start epic!
-No plans for a Mac atm. BUT, it works really well with Bootcamp.
-Certain races are faction based only. however, there is an unannounced feature that will be revealed in the future that could change this...
-No comment on legacy system
-Lvl 50 expect to have about 35 abilities (including passive ones)
-Sith Purebloods can NOT be Inquisitors due to story and lore. Many fights in-house have caused that. Release may be different.
-Vanity armor slots (dressing room) is not going to happen. It would undermine their design of the game.
-There may be some hot-pants! lol
-No dancing wookies. =(
-Personal ships interior can not be customized at launch, but will be post ship at some point most likely.
-Unlockable titles are in. (we already knew that, dork)
-Titles are totally cosmetic. No bonuses
-Favorite class in game is Agent for 2 of them, one will play a smuggler though. 3rd says Warrior. 4th says Smuggler.

-Pre-orders, another companion, new in-game trailers, new mounts (speeder bikes and land speeders), companion customization (appearance and AI), large participation beta weekends in Sept.

-Darthhater interview: http://darthhater.com/2011/07/23/sdc...las-dickinson/

-TORWars interview: http://torwars.com/2011/07/22/video-...ndow-and-more/

Interesting things from DH interview:
-How does your Light and Dark side points affect your combat and can you give some examples of this?

I can't give you examples. However, something we talked about all along is that as you progress very far down the light side path or very far down the Dark side path, you're actually going to unlock some abilities that are only available to that side of the Force.

-Can you describe the scope of Operations (raids) that will be available at release?

Thus far we are only promising one Operation. It will be playable at multiple party sizes. It is called the Eternity Vault, and you probably saw a video of it. We haven't allowed hands-on on it yet, but we probably will sometime soon.

What about changing the armor on some of the vehicles... like the speeders?

One of the things when were determining how we were going to have progression work within speeders, within your personal vehicle... the reason we started so slow is we wanted to have a traditional MMO thing where you start out and you're a little bit faster, you get a better speeder. And you're a little bit faster, and then we sort of realized that it was counter to Star Wars. You want to be pretty darn fast.
So there are going to be speed upgrades as you get the higher level speeders, but in addition (to that), we're going to be upgrading the armor so you get knocked off your speeder less frequently. Right now as you drive around Tatooine, if you get too close to somebody, they can do enough damage and pop you off your speeder. If you're on a more highly armored one, you're going to have a lot more capacity to take damage without being knocked off, which again is a boon to the player who is trying to get from point A to point B.

http://darthhater.com/2011/07/21/sdc...nel-live-blog/

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SDCC Panel and Q&A

Unofficial Comic-Con thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=345810
Q&A:
1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_Y7OmWk47c
2: http://darthhater.com/2011/07/22/sdc...blog-coverage/
3: http://darthhater.com/2011/07/23/sdc...blog-coverage/
4: http://darthhater.com/2011/07/24/sdc...blog-coverage/

Panel:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oybRg_07qtk&hd=1
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1dPoeXYN70
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3S4n...el_video_title

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New speeder models

Video: (at 19:40-20:30)
http://comic-con.gamespot.com/video/...s-your-destiny

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Kasere's youtube guides

A new Youtube channel has come alve that will offer guides and informational videos as more info comes out.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Rainfalls7711

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Short live demo of first Operation
Here's a look at the first raid! (HD extended edition)
Also, sounds like 8 and 16 man sizes were confirmed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJS5HZyClZQ

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New Assassin Tank Blog

A message about the blog:
Hey everyone! I just started a new blog about Sith Assassin tanking. I'm going to update it frequently with new information, and keep it up to date with the correct rotations/gear info in the future. I'm really going to work to make it the one stop shop for tanking assassins. I would love to have a great community surrounding my posts!
Many thanks,
Trapstar

http://assassintank.blogspot.com/

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Gamescom info

A lot of things came out of Gamescom, so i'll highlight a few here. All Gamscom info can be found here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=380477

-Extended Eternity Vault: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L20K...layer_embedded

-The Pit (Huttball) premiere: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LntNjc-3ahQ
-30 min complete Alderaan warzone and further gameplay of Eternity Vault: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAYiG...layer_embedded
-Full Huttball match: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=543lyjmr7yM
-Trooper Alderaan PvP with TotalBiscuit shoutcast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luKyn...ature=youtu.be

-Great interview from DarthHater with Gabe that has new info: http://darthhater.com/2011/08/21/gam...elo-interview/
-Great interview, no bullshitting around: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ4-1...layer_embedded
-TenTonHammer interview with James Ohlen: http://swtor.tentonhammer.com/featur...en-at-syndcon/

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PAX Prime

A lot of things came out of PAX, so i'll highlight a few here. All PAX info can be found here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=443996

-Developer walkthru of Eternity Vault: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeeMDUdxQzg&hd=1
-Open World PvP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTgbK...layer_embedded
-Main presention video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VwCe...layer_embedded
-James Ohlen interview with good questions: http://www.forcejunkies.com/2011/08/...r-james-ohlen/

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Companions!!!

Watch this awesome video on companions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWXOD...layer_embedded

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Release date and pricing!!!!!

Each copy of Star Wars: The Old Republic will come with 30 days of subscription time, after which you have the option to continue playing with one of the following monthly subscription fees:

•1 Month Subscription: $14.99 (£8.99/€12.99)
•3 Month Subscription: $13.99 per month (one-time charge of $41.97/£25.17/€35.97)
•6 Month Subscription: $12.99 per month (one-time charge of $77.94/£46.14/€65.94)

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Eurogamer

So, while no one really thought it would happen here, we got the release date! 12-20-2011

There are also some other good things to come out of there. Here are some:

http://darthhater.com/2011/09/26/eur...-qa-highlights/

http://darthhater.com/2011/09/27/egx...ins-interview/

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...amer-expo-2011

http://darthhater.com/2011/09/24/egx...niel-erickson/

http://darthhater.com/2011/09/22/eur...-stephen-reid/

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Galaxy Map

Make sure you download the little thing you need. This is actually an amazing update. Download the Unity Web Player. It's really worth it.

http://www.swtor.com/info/holonet/galaxy-map

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2 part Friday Update

Companion Characters Update # 2
http://www.swtor.com/news/blog/20111007

Choose your side, JK vs BH!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT4cL...layer_embedded

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New York Comic Con

Highlights:

Daniel Erickson: 15 is the number of flashpoints players will be able to experience at launch. Each one of these flashpoints are tightly scripted dungeons.

Handed off to Reid, explaining operations, hard modes allow for end game ones. Screenshot of new operation, Hutt, neutral. Screenshot will be up on the website later today

James Ohlen talking about starship fleets as social locations. Fleets are the main launch point for flashpoints, auctions, and best vendors. The collectors edition gives access to the VIP area in the fleet.

James Ohlen: PVP Warzones at launch - 3. Information on Voidstar, Satele Shan introducing it, video. Voidstar is inspired by Episode 4, objective based, each side gets a turn attacking (Assault type), clips being shown. Four objective points.

Question about smart phone apps. Answer: We love smart phones.

James Ohlen: Visual change of morality paths is in. Staying away from morality locking abilities, maybe later. Don't want to gimp you.

Q: If you're on a pvp server can you kill rebel scum? A: Ohlen: safe early, later it becomes dangerous. We don't want someone stalking you, so there a mechanics in death system to prevent that. Sanctuaries help, they are there but are rare. Example - You can't turn the Hutt capital into a blood bath. Aside from that, there are mechanics are in place to disallow ganking when in dialogue moments.

Q: How will item mods work? A: Ohlen: being modified as a system. As currently stands, you can modify a high % of items. Let's you keep old stuff longer, especially iconic anesthetic armor. Keep your favorite look. High level mods difficult to get. More details later, mods and how they work are still being worked on.

Q: How many of the 15 flashpoints are shared with both factionss? A: Ohlen: About a dozen shared. Erickson: I do not remember end game count. Two plus endgame flashpoints.

Q: Will we see racial abilities in the game? Ohlen: They won't influence your character choice.

Q: Race/class combos? Erickson: We decided the list. Reid knows. Reid: Sith Pureblood Inquisitor

Q: Can you customize your UI? Ohlen: Limited customization at launch, working on more later.

Q: Playable wookies? Erickson: No, it is fully voiced. We're not a sandbox. We are a Star Wars movie. No fiction was focused on wookies. Too much time spent listening to yourself.

Q: Is there a reward system for non-extreme alignment paths like grey? A: Ohlen: We won't gimp you. We're careful with it. It doesn't impact all of your abilities. Erickson: You can be snarky and still be light side. You can be a wiseass in conversations but light side. It's the bigger actions that you take that matter.

A: Erickson: Voice actors locked into long term contracts, will not change.

Q: Are there any other impacts on class story aside from morality? Erickson: Class story changes by actions taken. Actions affect story ending

http://darthhater.com/

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Press get to talk about impressions

Here are a few. There are more though.

http://darthhater.com/2011/10/20/rep...a-media-event/

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SWTORExtreme informational videos

Check out the videos to learn more!

http://www.youtube.com/user/swtorextreme

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Fansite Summit round 2!

Most info can be found here:

http://darthhater.com/2011/11/08/dar...nd-2-coverage/

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No more NDA!!!!

The NDA has been lifted. We are free to rejoice!

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**moaradin** · 2011-03-24, 04:04 AM

Haha, nice post.

**Izzyasha** · 2011-03-24, 04:06 AM

nice and meaty. GG

Deleted · 2011-03-24, 04:09 AM

Wall of text crits me for over 9000!

Nice gathering

**Ragnardarkan** · 2011-03-24, 04:10 AM

really enjoyed the post Trolls, been trying to tell buddies of mine about the game and now I can direct them to this thread.

**Ryme** · 2011-03-24, 04:12 AM

Honestly intrigued to see if this will ever reach out beyond the dedicated Star Wars fans.

**Trollsbane** · 2011-03-24, 04:16 AM

I will condense the interviews down to links in the near future. I just want certain people to crit on the text wall cause I'm kinda mean sometimes.

**moaradin** · 2011-03-24, 04:16 AM

Bioware fans, RPG fans in general, hopefully MMO fans, or all 3 like me. I think this game has a ton of potential to get new players into the MMO genre much like WoW did. Blizzard has even said that themselves.

**Hanto** · 2011-03-24, 04:17 AM

Originally Posted by Shadowdream

Honestly intrigued to see if this will ever reach out beyond the dedicated Star Wars fans.

I'm a fan of the films, but I'm by far no die-hard SW follower. The game looks interesting and I'm looking forward to trying it with a few buddies.

Deleted · 2011-03-24, 04:17 AM

Originally Posted by Trollsbane

I will condense the interviews down to links in the near future. I just want certain people to crit on the text wall cause I'm kinda mean sometimes.

Try to have a line or so with what the interview is about when you do so people know which is taking about which ^^

**Trollsbane** · 2011-03-24, 04:19 AM

Originally Posted by Yakobo15

Try to have a line or so with what the interview is about when you do so people know which is taking about which ^^

Yep yep. Will do.

**Mavecryst** · 2011-03-24, 04:41 AM

Thanks for the collection of information. Nice and up to date, and it's great to see how far the game has come along since it was announced. Hope they live up to their promises, some are pretty damn grand

but they just might pull it off at this rate..

**Yooya** · 2011-03-24, 05:02 AM

Did Christmas come early?

**Trollsbane** · 2011-03-24, 05:04 AM

Originally Posted by Yooya

Did Christmas come early?

Hehe. Just got tired of bouncing between 5 threads and posting the same things to different people every 5 pages of each of the 5 threads.

**Grable** · 2011-03-24, 06:28 AM

Holy cow Trollsbane, this is impressive.

**Kathion** · 2011-03-24, 06:35 AM

Originally Posted by moaradin

. Blizzard has even said that themselves.

Do you have a link to that by any chance? Not that I don't believe you or anything, I just like knowing everything there is to know about this game

**Grable** · 2011-03-24, 06:41 AM

Originally Posted by Kathion

Do you have a link to that by any chance? Not that I don't believe you or anything, I just like knowing everything there is to know about this game

No link but I can confirm they said something like that.

**Trollsbane** · 2011-03-24, 06:43 AM

Originally Posted by Kathion

Do you have a link to that by any chance? Not that I don't believe you or anything, I just like knowing everything there is to know about this game

"It's "a fact" that BioWare's recently announced MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic will be great, Blizzard has said."
http://www.videogamer.com/pc/wow/new..._blizzard.html

"World of Warcraft developer Blizzard Entertainment has wished their soon to be MMO rivals, EA and LucasArts, good luck with its forthcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO. Blizzard are banking on the BioWare-developed SW:TOR to breathe new life into the MMO genre, benefiting everyone.

The company’s co-founder and Executive Vice President, Frank Pearce, tells MCV in an interview that, "This is a game that has an opportunity to grow the MMO market if done right and therefore is very important to the industry as a whole, not just EA."
http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/8...s-mmo-success/

**Kathion** · 2011-03-24, 06:48 AM

/tearsofjoy..You're a good person for posting all this

**aaranu** · 2011-03-24, 06:49 AM

Awesome post trolls, thanks for taking the time to put it together

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