STAR WARS: The Old Republic - Video Documentary #4 - Combat

Ray Muzyka and other developers guide us through combat in SWTOR. I'm looking forward to getting some sweet screenshots of my guy in action.  Some of the stuff you get to see in this video is very cool! It's about 6 minutes, so sit back and enjoy!

SWTOR Community Q&A on PvP

I for one am looking forward to getting into HutBall! What's not to like about shooting the dude that just took your ball? :P Today, Principal Lead PvP Designer Gabe Amatangelo answers a few of your questions about Player-vs-Player Combat in The Old Republic.

From swtor.com:

Q: How important is the PvP community to BioWare? – Kryptorchid

A: Very important. The Old Republic’s PvP developers are avid gamers and active, long-time members of the MMO PvP community. We hold preservation and growth of the The Old Republic PvP community near and dear to our hearts.

Q: Will there be any kind of arena system? If so, which brackets will it support? - Inquiescent

A: ‘Arena System’ has come to mean two different things depending on the context: Single Elimination PvP game mode and Ranking/Tournament Systems. Whether or not we add that game mode to The Old Republic’s current lineup (domination, assault and bombing run) is TBD. However, one of the top things on our list for post launch is a rated Warzone system where players can form teams, earn team ratings, earn individual ratings, as well as participate in tournaments, etc.

Q: Are there any plans for non-combat forms of PvP, such as Pazaak or Swoop Racing? - RizzoRatchet

A: We are considering, testing and/or developing several things like that. We’ll let you know as soon as we are sure about what we’re going to add.

Q: Will we see a “Criminal” or “Bounty” mechanic so that we can persistently hunt down and torment those who hinder our progression? – Gryffin

A: Haha. Nice way of phrasing ‘how do you guys plan to deal with griefers!’ We are currently testing and iterating on a system to ensure player progression cannot be blocked by griefers on a PvP server, while still allowing for the thrill of spontaneous open world PvP conflicts.

Q: Will there be safe zones on PvP servers outside of faction-specific planets? – Zepplin

A: There are very few, but some do exist. For example, the promenade on the neutral planet of Nar’Shadda is a sanctuary.

Q: What incentives will there be for players to focus on targets outside of the typical “gank the healer” strategy; and how will factors such as burst damage, crowd control and “PvP tanking” play a role in accomplishing this? – Marsobot

A: Winning will be the incentive. Attacking the healer will be the right decision sometimes, but not always. A key contributor in ensuring this is the tanks’ Guard and Taunt abilities. Guard will redirect half of the damage through the Tank’s mitigation and avoidance. A taunted target will deliver less damage to everyone but the tauntee. Players will be able to easily visualize which Tanks are guarding and taunting, who their targets are, and when damage is deflected through clear animations and effects. This adds to the dynamics of a skirmish as players of varying skill levels can easily react to and be on their toes about who the real targets of opportunity are and when. Additionally, Tanks will be recognized and rewarded for how much damage they deflect in this fashion on Warzone scoreboards.

We have a fairly large health pool to burst damage potential ratio. This allows for burst damage to be useful when the time is right, while not letting it dictate the outcome of all skirmishes.

And as far as crowd control goes, there is ‘Resolve.’ Every time a player is crowd controlled they build up Resolve, which is pictured as a bar over the characters head (below the health bar). Once a player’s Resolve Bar is full it changes colors and starts to decay over time, during this they are immune to crowd control. The visual element helps with PvP accessibility, and tuning the Resolve values allows us to achieve a fun tempo ensuring crowd control as its place but isn’t the end all be all of PvP.

Q: Since it has been clearly stated that there will not be dual specs for characters in the game, can you explain your philosophy behind the skill trees and how you are taking into account players that want to be able to play PvP and PvE content on the same character? - illumineart

A: Dual Speccing is something we want to add soon after launch. Also, features like Guard, PvP Taunt, Resolve, etc. work to narrow the gap between PvP and PvE specialized skills (i.e. a +Block skill would be helpful in both PvE and PvP).

Q: Are waiting queues cross-server and, if so, also cross-language? - Kisskill

A: No. We believe that fostering rivalries and memorable encounters with recognizable players are important in building a good PvP community on a server. We suspect cross-server queuing compromises these key tenets. Additionally, systems like bolster and same faction vs same faction Warzones (like Hutball) help matches pop frequently and regularly.

That being said we will be keeping a close eye on the communities and re-examine the system as necessary.

Q: Are there rewards for PvP, such as Titles, Badges, Grades, etc.? – Xenthor

A: Yes. Players will earn currency for PvP Gear, Valor Ranks, titles and other privileges through PvP accomplishments, such as winning Warzone matches, claiming Open World PvP objectives, finding hidden caches in PvP areas, etc.

Q: How will the Bolster system work? – Kelremar

A: If after a time the Warzone matchmaking system has not found a match of players of the same level range, then it will start up a ‘bolstered match’ where players of varying levels will have their stats bolstered to within 20% of each other. Therefore, player skill disparity withstanding, the lowest level player will be 80% as effective as the highest level player in the match.

Thanks for checking out this month’s Studio Insider. We hope you enjoyed taking a look at what goes into creating animations in The Old Republic, as well as our Q&A on PvP. We know you have a lot of questions, so we’ve opened new Community Q&A threads in the forums and onFacebook which center on the topic of socializing in The Old Republic. Post your questions before September 30th and they may get answered in our next Studio Insider!

PC gaming coming full circle

I had the opportunity to go out to Southwood Boys Grammar today, which is an all boys school in Melbourne's outer suburbs. For the last ten years they have had a dedicated class about building PCs and I have gone out there to do a talk on PC hardware several times over the years.

I remember that in one of my visits about eight years ago, although the boys were kind of interested in PCs, they had little to no interest in current PC hardware. All the buys were definitely more interested in console gaming. I got to witness a whole generation of kids totally abandon PC gaming in favor of console gaming. It wasn't until this year's visit today that I saw a complete turn around.

A lot of the kids had true knowledge of current chipsets, processors, and the ability to totally build PCs from scratch. Rather than describing the basics of how PCs work, we were getting into the details of overclocking and PC RAM technology. We discussed the benefits of integrating memory controllers and PCI controllers into CPUs, as opposed to having them in the North Bridge. The boys spent their lunch break in the computer room playing on their PCs and all of them were discussing their latest activities in World of Warcraft and Crysis 2. When I asked one of the boys about console games, they referred to their Playstation 3 as a good "filler" but that the majority of their gaming was now done on their PC.

This is a great sign for PC gaming. Although I never really made the console jump myself, I did see a whole generation put consoles before PCs for a time. I believe that everybody gets far more out of building and creating their on PCs than they could ever get from consoles.

Smuggler progression video, out now

Smugglers seem to be sneaky, dirty fighting scoundrels ... hang on a second, that's what they're meant to be!

Leia: Why, you stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking Nerf herder.
Han Solo: Who'sscruffy-looking?

Actually, in this latest official video, this smuggler character is not all that scruffy looking! This video gives us a brief look at the character progression of a smuggler class character in SWTOR. Will you be a gunslinger or a scoundrel? The video also gives a nice kudos to Harrison Ford in that classic scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark where he fights a sword wielding Arab. The video is well put together and if you're considering the smuggler class, it's definitely worth a look.



Don't forget to check out our Smuggler information page, for all the down and dirty information on this underworld class.

SWTOR FACE: Dragon Con 2011 - Slave Leia Photoshoot

If your male, like Star Wars, and like the opposite sex, then like me you will love this photo shoot! I found my wife at a Star Wars fan club 17 years ago and looking at the girls at Dragon Con 2011 I bet some geeks found true love too! What's not to like about a hot geek chick in a slave Leia outfit?

Dragon Con 2011 - Slave Leia Photoshoot

If your male, like Star Wars, and like the opposite sex, then like me you will love this photo shoot! I found my wife at a Star Wars fan club 17 years ago and looking at the girls at Dragon Con 2011 I bet some geeks found true love too! What's not to like about a hot geek chick in a slave Leia outfit?

Yoda vs Yoda

It was father's day yesterday in Australia and my wife has pre-ordered the Star Wars trilogy on Blu-ray. One of the most exciting things about this new release is that they've finally fixed the horrid looking Yoda in Episode 1. I recently re-watched Episode 1 and I couldn't believe the cringe factor the puppet gave me. I remember watching a documentary about the making of the new puppet for Episode 1 and how they re-used Stuart Freeborn's face as the basis for the mould. Stuart Freeborn was the original sculptor and the puppet was redesigned for Episode 1 by Nick Dudman. The Episode 1 design was, excuse the pun, a dud! When sculpting off the same face, so I cannot understand why they got it so wrong. Check out the differences for yourself below. Do you believe this change is an upgrade, to what most people consider the worst movie in the Star Wars series? I must say that for me, it's going to make Jar Jar Binks and Anakin saying "yipee!", a little bit more tolerable.

Attached to virtual objects

One of the most attractive things about MMO worlds are the objects you get to acquire; whether it be armor, or homes that you set up, or even pets, there is always something that you get attached to. And if you don't get attached to something in a game you generally find that you don't stick around for too long.

For me, in World of Warcraft, it was a pet owl named Jimmy. I named this owl after my pet lorikeet. He was the first pet that I got in game when I reached level 70, the then level cap in Burning Crusades. This pet became a Guild icon in our raids and was a subject of conversation after many Boss defeats. Jimmy often got credit for the high dps that hunters were able to put out. It couldn't have possibly been me ... must have been my pet Jimmy :P

When Wrath of the Lynch King came out, Blizzard in their wisdom decided to completely change the class of pet that Jimmy was. He was no longer a dps pet, he was a cunning pet, specifically designed for pvp, having little to no benefit in raids. Around the same time, my real life pet Jimmy the lorekeet passed away and I decided to release my Word of Warcraft pet in a sanctuary within the game. I made a personal pledge to myself that I would never use Jimmy again, unless Blizzard did something really cool, like make him a spirit beast.

I had actually quite WoW for more than four months (earlier in 2011) but I decided to use Blizzard's free 7 day trial to check out the new content they emailed me about. When I found out about the spirit beast owl, I realized it was a must-have for me. Although I'm not going to play anywhere near the amount that I used to, I must say that it is a real draw card to have something like an in-game pet that you are attached to.

I've been lucky enough to see Ban'thalos three times now. The first time a Horde hunter thought it would be a good idea to serpent sting it as I was trying to tame, preventing me from doing so, so he could get the tame after it killed me. The second time I managed to tame it myself and name him Jimmy. And again yesterday I found him and helped another hunter tame him.

What in-game object, place or pet are you attached to? Let us know in the comments below.

Read up on the Old Republic

I recently download the Darkhorse app for my iPad, as they were advertising Star Wars comics. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they have the full series of both The Knights of the Old Republic and Star Wars, The Old Republic. Both these comic series take place in and around the time that SWTOR is set.

Star Wars The Old Republic Series looks at a variety of different class characters and also the relationship between some of the companion characters that you will get the opportunity to play with in SWTOR. It's made up of little series, for example, the first three comics are about the relationship between a Sith Warrior and his companion.

I absolutely loved Knights of the Old Republic, starting with A Jedi Betrayed. If anything this comic series questioned my loyalty to either side of the Force; who really are the bad guys in this story? Are the Jedi really as good as they make out? Do the Sith, who rely on their emotions and feelings, all necessarily have to be evil? These comics are available on both the Darkehorse comic store for your iPhone or iPad and also available in print from Amazon.com

In SWTOR news this week!

Just getting in before the Friday update so you all get to see some of the unique SWTOR news around the web this week. Red Rancor is a must read this week looking at gold farmers. I hate gold farmers and it pisses me off when people support them! Most gold farmers in MMOs are hacked or stolen accounts and it's just wrong to support them. If you buy SWTOR credits may all your accounts get hacked!



Red Rancor

Gold Farmers Can't Wait to Pounce on SWTOR Like Vultures

The Race for Your Dollars is ON!!

"Would you believe there are "buy in-game gold" sites already listing Star Wars: the Old Republic Credits for sale? Isn't that just ridiculous; we're still a couple of months before the game releases! Ridiculous or not, back in April Eurogamer.net listed eight websites with names like "cheapswtorcredit" and "swtorgold" that have already been set up for your credit buying pleasure."

These are also worth a read ...

Darth Hater - An Old Republic Community

Darth Hater PAX 2011 Coverage - Darth Hater is back at PAX in full force with our in-depth coverage of everything related to *Star Wars*: The Old Republic.





r2-db.com/

Galactic Librarians are now live! - As we draw closer and closer to being fully prepared to meet the demands for Star Wars: The Old Republics official launch (Whenever that will be),