each class will be able to get a total of 5 companions through out the game. Each companion will be able to do different types of damage or play different roles in a group. Each companion will also give different bonuses to your crew skills.
Star Wars is an expansive universe. You' will be playing the game, you will be fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Here we make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind Star Wars: the old republic
With more people playing SWTOR beta and game testing now, we are seeing more info coming out about it. While these players are still bound to the NDA, it is to be expected that some general knowledge will come out about the game.
If you will be playing SWTOR with a group of friends, it makes sense to form up your own guild so you can all play together and take advantage of any guild perks and benefits right from the start. Here is how to
Datacrons are part of the codex system in Star Wars The Old Republic. They are placed throughout the worlds for the players to find, usually in hard to reach places. As a reward for this exploration ingenuity, if a player successfully reachs and interacts with certain datacrons, one of the player's character stats will be increased -- permanently. Here is the complete list of Datacrons, rrdered by codex entry #
There are so many talented artist around the net. I can spend hours and hours browsing deviantart. I'm still hyped about Patrick Lamber's artwe posted a few weeks back and original wanted to post some more today. But browsing around I cam across some both cool, beautiful and funny wallpapers for SWTOR that I just had to show you.
Hope you enjoy.
Aggressive Negotiations by Twizdedsoul
Download the full size here and check out more of Twizdedsoul stuff here
Imperial Agent SWTOR Wallpaper by MajorBummsore
Download the full size here and check out more of Twizdedsoul stuff here
Sonjou Desktop back ground by superman060179
Download the full size here and check out more of superman060179l stuff here
Imperial agent I by dywa
Download the full size here and check out more of dywa stuff here
A few weeks ago, we showed a video trailer for LEGO Star Wars III. This time we get the chance to look at some screenshots of boss battles for this upcoming game.
The Game is developed by Traveller’s Tales and published by LucasArts and TT Games, and will be the following gaming platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PSP, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo 3DS (as a launch title for the new gaming device), and PC.
LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars is scheduled to launch on March 22, 2011
Key Features:
New Story – For the first time, players will experience their favourite storiesfrom Star Wars: The Clone Wars, retold in the amazing LEGO world that fans know and love.
Massive Ground Battles – Brand new to the LEGO Star Wars experience, players will take control of battalions of clone troopers against the relentless droid army - building bases, deploying vehicles and calling in reinforcements to defeat opponents.
SceneSwap – Authentic to the Star Wars experience, a new feature allows players to take control of multiple teams in separate locations. Working together to complete various objectives, players will control each team through the press of a button, while playing in single player or in multiplayer co-op modes.
All New Boss Battles – For the first time in the LEGO Star Wars franchise, fans will fight against massive bosses as seen in TheClone Wars animated series, including Gor, the epic Zillo Beast and many other favourites.
Multi-Layered Space Battles – Players will be able to take off in their favourite ships to navigate and fly through multi-layered combat throughout the galaxy.
New Combat Abilities – Characters will have more dynamic moves allowing players greater freedom to battle their opponents. Characters will also have new lightsaber abilities including Lightsaber Cutting, Lightsaber Throwing, and Lightsaber Climbing. The game will also feature new grappling abilities allowing players to climb their way through puzzles and defeat enemies.
Explore the Galaxy – Players will be able to explore exotic locations in a variety of ships throughout 16 different star systems. Fans will play as villainous Separatists, the noble Republic heroes or even as bounty hunters, tracking down characters across the galaxy.
Expanded Force Abilities – Using the Force in all new ways to control LEGO objects, players will solve puzzles, access new areas, pick up and throw enemies - even turning them into weapons.
Brand New Clone Weapons, Vehicles and Characters – New clone weapons including rapid fire guns and rocket launchers, as well as all new massive capital ships to explore, such as Anakin Skywalker’s flagship the Resolute and Grievous’ devastating warship , the Malevolance. Players will also navigate through the galaxy in new vehicles such as the Republic gunship, Clone Turbo Tank and even Anakin’s Jedi Intercepter and the Twilight. Fans will also discover their favourite classic characters such as Darth Vader, Chewbacca and Luke Skywalker.
Puzzle Solving – The game will feature all new puzzles that reward creative thinking through the use of teamwork and unique building situations only possible in a LEGO galaxy far, far away.
All new lighting and animations – A brand new engine brings characters to life, giving players a whole new level of control in a vibrant environment, unlike anything ever seen before in a LEGO game.
Split Screen – Improved dynamic split screen for multi-player co-op with jump in/jump out abilities for friends and families to play together.
Lonna Vash was a Jedi Master and member of the Jedi Council during the Mandalorian Wars and the Jedi Civil War. She was one of the Masters who banished the Jedi Exile from the Jedi Order.
Lonna Vash's role was bigger in the original vision of the developers, Obsidian Entertainment, but like many other incomplete things it had to be cut because of the forced premature release of the game.
She was planned to be found by the player on M4-78, a planet populated by droids, where she came searching for the Exile with her Padawan, Kaah Ohtok. The corresponding conversation the Exile has with Vash was even recorded and put in the game file, but, like the incomplete planet, was never used in the actual game. However, as Vash was a Council member shown in an important cut scene, the developers placed her dead body on also-incomplete Korriban to explain what happened to her.
Although it is never stated what kind of lightsaber Lonna Vash wielded, a lightsaber (the color and type of lightsaber are random) is found in the interrogation chamber. She is shown in cut content wielding a lightsaber with a silver blade, but as cut content is not officially canon, this has not been confirmed.
Biography
By the time the Jedi withdrew from Taris, just prior to the Mandalorian invasion of the Galactic Republic, Vash had attained the rank of Master and gained a seat on the High Council. She stood in the chamber when Xamar, Raana Tey, Q'Anilia, Feln and Lucien Draay were relieved of their assignment at the Jedi Tower in the wake of the Padawan Massacre of Taris. After the war, she attended the trial of the Jedi Exile and decreed the former Revanchist was part of the Jedi Order no longer. Vash was among the Masters who convicted her the most, but she felt the Exile had changed since the end of the war, and she stood up to Atris after the Exile had left the Council chamber, when she said the wound the Exile carried was a sign of dark side corruption.
During the First Jedi Purge, Atris called a conclave on Katarr aimed at finding the threat that stalked the Jedi. Neither Vash or Atris went to the meeting, but after the devastation of Katarr by the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Nihilus, Vash and the surviving Masters went into self-imposed exile. Like her fellow Council members Kavar and Zez-Kai Ell, she probably thought that Atris had died on Katarr; she was in truth responsible for what had happened, as it was she who leaked knowledge of the conclave to draw out the Sith. On Kavar's suggestion, they traveled to different planets and hid their presence in the Force in hopes that the Sith would think themselves victorious and step from the shadows. They sought out places touched by war so as to be more difficult to detect, and because they thought there was a chance the Exile would return to such places, if only to try and make peace with what happened there during the war. Lonna Vash went to Korriban, to the abandoned Sith Academy.
The Jedi Exile eventually arrived on Korriban during her search for the Jedi Masters. However, unbeknownst to her, the Sith Lord Darth Sion reached the planet before her; when the Exile entered the academy, the front door closed, trapping her inside. She found Master Vash lying dead in a pool of blood in the interrogation chamber—Sion had used Vash as bait for the Exile.
Fortunately, the Exile found out that Vash, when still alive, had created a user account under her name in the academy's security system. This account would make it possible for her to open the front door and escape in case of danger. Using this account, the Exile fled from the academy after a short battle with Sion, whom she proved to be unable to kill.
Speeder bikes and swoop bikes are small, fast transports that use repulsorlift engines, usually carrying one or two passengers. Speeder bikes emphasized speed and maneuverability over conventional speeders and were popular with thrill-seeking teenagers and military scouts. A typical speeder bike had a maximum altitude of 10 meters (32 feet) and could thus maneuver deftly over very rough terrain. Some companies manufactured extras like sidecars for speeder bikes.
The lightweight bikes can usually attain speeds in excess of 500 kilometers per hour. A quartet of small directional steering vanes on twin outriggings afford the speeder its maneuverability. The Imperial biker scouts from Return of the Jedi used two shoulder-level handgrips to control elevation and direction; a pair of rocker-pivoted pedals controls acceleration. Located just fore of the speeder's saddle is a panel of toggle switches and knobs that control communications and other vital systems. Slung beneath the speeder's frame is a single laser cannon.
In KOTOR it is possible to drive swoop bikes as part of a mini game. In this competing swoop racers did not take to the track at the same time. Instead, each racer would race alone over a course filled with obstacles and speed-enhancing "acceleration pads". After all racers had completed one or more trials, the racer with the best time won. Some of the earliest swoop bikes could be found on Taris.The swoop racing circuit at the time centered on Taris, with other tracks on Nar Shaddaa, Onderon, Telos IV, Manaan and Tatooine. Most famously, Revan competed in the Taris circuit shortly before that planet's destruction; using a modified swoop to gain the fastest time.
Many planets, such as Tatooine, had an amateur track. The track coordinator there was Motta the Hutt. The award for victory was usually valuable "race bonds" which could be later sold.
Though its hey-day was during the Jedi Civil War, swoop racing was always a popular sport both on professional and amateur levels. It enjoyed a resurgence in popularity when it became the Empire-sanctioned replacement of podracing. Swoop Racing was often regarded as a safer alternative to podracing since the tracks were much less complex and the risk of injury or death was not as high as the faster podracing events. Its popularity may also have been helped by the fact that Humans could participate since swoop racing required less reflexes than podracing.
Origin and design
Various concept sketches came from producer George Lucas' call for a "rocket powered scooter" in Return of the Jedi. While Industrial Light &Magic's (ILM) Nilo Rodis-Jamero designed a blocky vehicle with a large engine, Ralph McQuarrie's designs were more fanciful but with less of a sense of the vehicle's power source. The final designs resulted both in full-scale Imperial speeder bikes used by the actors for film against a bluescreen, along with miniatures mounted by articulated puppets. ILM used a steadicam recording at 1 frame per second to record the speeder bikes' path through the forest moon of Endor -- in reality, a California forest. Playing the footage at the standard rate of 24 frames per second caused a blurring effect, what looked like 100MPH actually was shot at 5MPH , which ILM used to simulate the vehicles' high speed.
The BARC speeder in Revenge of the Sith was designed to appear like a predecessor to the speeder bikes in Return of the Jedi. ILM's Doug Chiang designed Darth Maul's (Ray Park) speeder in The Phantom Menace to resemble a scythe, and Chiang's initial designs for the droid army's STAP vehicle resembled the speeder bikes from Return of the Jedi. An all-CGI swoop appearing in A New Hope stems from a design created for Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, and the swoop also appears briefly in The Phantom Menace.
This weeks friday update gives us another developer blog. This time it's Live Producer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, Blaine Christine that shares some insight about his job.
Blaine Christine has worked for BioWare for three and a half years and mainly take care of beta testing stuff right now. I imagine he is the last man who have a look at things before new patches hits the test realms etc.
Thorugh out this weeks blog, Blaine Christine quotes a few beta testers with their exstreamly positive (obviously) opinions on the game.
Here is the probably most interesting quotes from game testers:
“The questing experience in TOR was amazing! The voiceovers and cinematics actually make me wonder how I ever survived the 'grind' without them.”
“As one of those people who didn't really care about story in an MMO, after playing TOR I can't imagine playing another MMO unless it has as much focus on story as TOR does.”
“I've been waiting years and years and years for an MMORPG experience like this. The combat is incredible and never gets old. The grind is gone. I am so happy the grind is gone (so, so very happy). The stories are fantastic, well written, well acted, well animated, incredibly immersive, and the inclusion of choice takes it into territory that other MMOs have only dreamed of. Lastly, this game makes you feel like a bad***. The entire time. And I love that.”
Funny how the above quotes are excactly the same as all BioWare folkes have been saying over and over.... Anyway, you can read the whole friday update here.
Update: Community Manager Stephen Reid explains the reasoning behind today's update as follows.
This week's blog was originally intended to be part of next Friday's update. We ran into some unexpected issues finalizing this Friday's originally scheduled content, and so chose to move that content out to next Friday. As a result, next week, you'll get an update-and-a-half... and then after that, you'll soon see the cool stuff we've all been hard at work on for PAX East.
Logun has made yet another SWTOR fan video. This time he takes look at the Run/Walk animations in Star Wars: The old republic that have been heavily criticised since the first ingame videos hit the world.
Because I had a lot of people requesting this here is a fun look at the Run / Walk animations in SWTOR. Although the early footage from Pax 2009 had some wonky Run/Walk animations I really didn't see that much to be critical about in the more recent videos.
I guess its true about first impressions being hard to shake.
Check out his YouTube channel here and make sure you subscribe. You can watch his latest video bellow:
Daniel Erickson has posted a rather lengthy comment about Marriage in Star Wars: The Old republic. Basically he confirms it's possible to be married in SWTOR, which is kind of a dilemma as the Jedi order has sticked rules about this.
“Easy to give the official answer. But first let’s make sure we’re all on the same page. Cultures change over time. They move one way then another, values shift, influxes of new peoples or discoveries change what is considered normal, etc. So if we’re strictly talking about TOR then arguments based on things that happened thousands of years earlier or later aren’t really applicable except to compare and contrast. Our views on modern marriage are not those of ancient Rome, and I doubt in 3,000 years they will be the same. So let’s talk about where Jedi and Sith during the time period of The Old Republic.
For the last two hundred years the Jedi Order has been getting steadily more conservative. The liberalization that was necessary to restock the Jedi’s numbers in the century after the events of Knights of the Old Republic II is now looked back on as a necessary evil. In the time that followed there were a number of terrible Dark Jedi who emerged as warlords and worse.
The two factors that showed up the most often in analysis of what caused Jedi to fall were unorthodox training methods and romantic entanglements. Thus in the following centuries training became more orthodox, with a return to the Jedi Order’s earlier traditions. Which Masters were allowed to train padawans (and which could train more than one at once) became more restrictive and romance became one of the most guarded against emotional weakness. As the game opens it is possible to get married as a Jedi but it requires a lengthy process of approval including from the Jedi Council itself. A couple must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt they are both able to handle the strain romantic couples can endure. All children of Jedi are taken from them and raised by the Jedi as a whole, the same as other Force users in the Republic.
For the last thousand years the Sith Empire has needed stability and growth more than anything else. That means alliances that prevent power struggles. It means encouraging the creation of more children. Which in turn means marriage and a focus on family.
Where once the individual was judged largely alone, bloodlines are now incredibly socially important. A Sith from a long line of powerful Sith will find his path through the Academy easier, his opportunities increased. A family with no Force-users who suddenly find themselves with a Force-sensitive child will sacrifice everything they have to get them martial training and mental discipline coaches – for if that child passes the Academy and becomes Sith the entire family will rocket to the penultimate social class in Imperial society, side by side with moffs and governors, second only to Sith themselves.
Marriage among the Sith is usually between only two people and is often to forge a political alliance. Marriages of love do happen often among the lower ranked Sith but decrease the closer the Lord is to the top of the pyramid-shaped power structure. Marriages between Sith and non-Sith are rare as the Sith believe it dilutes the chance of a Force-sensitive offspring. It is a common, though unspoken of practice, for Sith parents to kill a non Force-sensitive offspring and deny it ever existed, claiming the baby was stillborn, etc. A Sith with openly non Force-sensitive offspring is believed to be admitting the thinness of the blood in his or her family line.
Adultery is common among the Sith but officially illegal. Divorce is strongly frowned upon but killing one’s spouse for adultery or any other provable offense is socially acceptable. The one time you see obligatory divorce is when a member of the Dark Council breaks a couple apart to stop the assimilation of too much power in one place. Hope that helps!”
BioWare have posted a new Facebook Image of the Week. The story of the image is: "The sound of this Zabrak Inquisitor’s lightsaber will be among the last an unsuspecting enemy patrol hears."
This Lego Layout has broken the boundaries of all Star Wars LEGO Layouts. Approximately 1.500.000 bricks and more than a thousand man hours have gone into this creation, Featuring 5 AT-ATs - 2 of them walking. Moving speederbikes and Snowspeeders, detailed interior of the Rebels Hoth Base and much more.
It was build by Bo Jensen and was displayed in the fan section of this years LEGO World in Copenhagen - Denmark
Here is a few pictures from the layout at Lego world:
Here are some pictures of the Battle of Endore Layout also presented at this years Lego World:
A few weeks ago, we posted the SWTOR Combat Animations Compilation created by logun24x7. It was a great video showing the graphic development in the beta stages of Star Wars: The old republic the last few years. SWTOR, has some unique challenges to overcome in the character graphics department, not only do they need to look good from a standard MMO third person perspective, they also need to stand up for the close-up cinematic cut scenes. Not a lot of MMO's have had to face this challenge.
Now Logun have posted a new video on his youtube channel, Showing SWTOR's graphic evolution from 2009 to 2011 with a comparison of other MMO's and a look at their graphic approach. Hopefully this video will keep the trolls quite for a while.
