Posted by Momus | 4 Comments

Friday Update – The Esseles Developer Walkthrough!

And on this Friday, we’re given a huge peek into the game yet again! The Esseles Flashpoint was previously showcased at San Diego Comic-Con, and you can view here the difficult choices that players there had to make.

Narrated once again by the incomparable (and beardless) Dallas Dickinson, it details the Republic’s perilous first instance where they…well, I won’t spoil the video for you yet. However, a nice coincidence of the video is that we get to see one of the many morally-ambiguous decisions players will be presented, and it goes to show that not every answer will be easy – and not every solution will be clean.

Side note/random observation: the phonetics of the Esseles is pretty close to SOS.

Head on over to the main site and check out the new video or watch the embedded Youtube link below.

 

 

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Posted by Momus | 7 Comments

Friday Update – Join the Fight

For today’s Friday Update, we get a glimpse of the Join The Fight trailer, which made its debut yesterday during the BioWare SDCC panel. The trailer is entirely made up of in-game footage.

We finally get to see (if only for a scene or two each) each class in action, along with the voices, at least for the genders shown. I believe the Consular showed us some AOE move we haven’t seen before (ranged move on a group, might be CC or an AOE with a CC component); while this may not satisfy Consular fans in lieu of a class video, it sure beats nothing!

On the Imperial side, we can see BioWare likes stabby-stabby moves whenever possible, as both the Bounty Hunter lasso and stab and the Imperial Agent cloak and stab were shown. Nothing too new there, that I can see.

Make sure you like TOR on Facebook or sign up for their Twitter feed to get updates!

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Friday Update – Studio Insider and Community Q&A + Comic-Con Details

While many of us were simply expecting a Fan Friday, we got a look instead into the opening cinematics, including two shorts videos, in a Studio Insider by Brian Arndt, Senior Video Editor at BioWare!

Another glimpse into the inner workings at BioWare, as well as two interesting vignettes of our characters. The Smuggler’s intro, I think we can all agree, is a bit more exciting than the Sith Warrior’s intro, but it was nontheless exciting to see them.

In addition, we got a Q&A session with Senior Audio Artist Scott Morton.

Q: What percentage of the in-game music is original for The Old Republic and what percentage has already been used elsewhere (movies, other games, etc.)? – Nahte

A: We’ve written a huge amount of original music for the game. There are over six hours of original score that have been produced specifically for The Old Republic, plus an additional hour and a half of brand new cantina music. In addition to the original score, you’ll also hear the scores for both Knights of the Old Republic I and Knights of the Old Republic II. Lastly, the game just wouldn’t be complete without John Williams’ material from the Star Wars films.

Next time, BioWare wants to hear your PvP questions… so what are you waiting for? Get postin’!  You can do so on the forums or on Facebook.

Finally, and separately, we got an update of the Sand Diego Comic Con information pertinent to The Old Republic.

Head on over to the SW:TOR main site and check it out!

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Posted by ReDDoT | 10 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: What Do You Expect From Remaining Friday Updates?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!

Not to add more fuel to the proverbial fire of hype and excitement, but without a doubt we’re all excited to see what the next few weeks are going to bring to us. There is a whole lot of speculation all over the General Discussion boards on SWTOR.com with regards to the latest tweets from Stephen’s Reid official Twitterand many other sources that point to the potential for big news. However, none of us know for sure what to expect, as not even the slightest hint was dropped on any official channel.

Most of the official information releases come via Friday Updates, and the next few Fridays have a chance and revealing the direction and the current state of Game Testing and potentially even hint at the almost mythical release date announcement. There’s an ongoing thread speculating on this upcoming Friday’s update, with one of the most popular choices being “Class info” – most likely a Jedi Consular progression video. Regardless, I think that any big updates will be saved for the week of San Diego Comic-Con.

But happens after that? You could accurately say we’d be in the home stretch…

What do you expect from the upcoming Friday updates? Is there a certain update that you would like to specifically see? Will there be a noticeable ramp-up in detail and depth? Let us know!

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Posted by ReDDoT | 13 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: What’s Your Friday Update Routine?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!

If you are here reading this on Ask A Jedi, odds are you’re pretty interested in Star Wars: The Old Republic. And as most of you know, BioWare has adopted an interesting communication strategy. Each Friday, the community team posts an update (or updates) to SWTOR.com. Some updates are Developer Blogs (check out last Friday’s Dev blog on maps), some updates are Fan Fridays (the most recent one contained a profile about us!), whereas still other updates can be a mix of a class progression videos or some additional tidbits of information about the game. All in all, if you care about the game – Fridays are a special day for you. Fridays also lead to a huge increase in traffic on the official forums, spiking in even more speculation. The fan sites devour the information thrown at us and dissect it for the visitors – showing them something they may not have seen otherwise (think of it as a frame by frame analysis of a video).

Personally, I look forward to Fridays simply because there is always a tiny bit of hope that a bit more information is going to be released about the actual release date of the game, perhaps a subtle hint or a slip up. So far, BioWare was pretty tight lipped about all of that – but according to the constantly locked and re-activated release date speculation thread found in the General Discussion – we are going to be getting some pretty big Friday Updates fairly soon, as we are nearing the release date announcement.

My Friday Update routine is rather simple – read the update straight through the official SW:TOR Facebook page and head off to the forums to discuss it with fellow fans. However I have heard people trying to extend their pleasure by reading the update throughout the weekend, bit by bit. Perhaps you have your own approach to reading Friday Updates.

So do you read every Friday update?  What’s your Friday update routine? Do you find them interesting? Do they usually excite you even more about the game or disappoint? Let us know by answering the poll below and leaving a comment!

 

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