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),

On the WoW again…

Just when you least expect it Blizzard do something to make you want to play WoW again … I stopped playing and raiding about 4 month ago and I must say there is nothing out there that provides the level of content Blizzard are still providing 7 years into their MMO.

The new hunter content will let me get my old owl back (Jimmy) in the form of a Spirit Beast and I can raid as Beast Master and top DPS in raids even after being away and getting no new loot for 4 months? WTF? I like being an OP Hunter but I think this time around I might just play 1 or 2 nights a week and not the 5 to 6 nights I did back in the day ...

 

It's A Trap! In HD!

This is what its all about! I will have to watch them all again on blu-ray! I still get that tingle every time I see clips like this!  And a note to my wife Fathers day in Australia next month! 

SWTOR FACE: SWTOR PVP 3v3 Video at Gamescon

SWTOR FACE: SWTOR PVP 3v3 Video at Gamescon: More SWTOR PVP action from Gamescon for you. This time we get some 3v3 action and a smoking hot actress dressed up as Darth Talon .

SWTOR PVP 3v3 Video at Gamescon

More SWTOR PVP action from Gamescon for you. This time we get some 3v3 action and a smoking hot actress dressed up as Darth Talon. No idea why in God's name they are chanting Darth Maul? I’d be chanting for the hot red chick! Not some dumb ass Sith that can't keep his legs attached to his body … Maybe the guys over there swing different . OOOO I’m Bad!!! : P





Check out the video. The angle sux balls but it gives you another look at PVP in SWTOR:

Gamescon Trooper PVP Video

In this sweet video from Gamescon we get to have a good look at the Trooper in some PVP action. Also on show is the Alderaan War Zone, plus you can witness the assets that a Trooper brings to his group in PVP. I think a lot of Jedi are going to be in for a shock when they see what they have to deal with from the ranged classes in PVP. After watching this I might even have to roll a Trooper! So is this guy real good or did the others just suck?

Google+ your SWTOR friends!

Jasdemi from the swtor forums started a thread about starting a Google+ circle and, well ... it went nuts fast! If you don't have Google+ click this link for an invite and come join us! OK, who is starting the hangout?

SWTOR FACE: Ready set hutt ... hutt ... hutt! Video

SWTOR FACE: Ready set hutt ... hutt ... hutt!: The idea of science fiction football has been around for years and I must say i am very excited about this arena style football game in Star Wars The Old Republic... Read on

Ready set hutt ... hutt ... hutt!

The idea of science fiction football has been around for years and I must say i am very excited about this arena style football game in Star Wars The Old Republic and it's not just Sith vs Republic, it's Sith vs Sith or Republic vs Republic. The Hutts really don't care who kills who. Imagine going to a football match where they gave all the jocks lightsabers and said get the football to the end of the field, any way possible!

"A new event has captured the hearts and minds of the citizens on the Smuggler’s Moon of Nar Shaddaa. Known as “Huttball,” two teams clash for the amusement of the masses and to win favor with the famed Giradda the Hutt in this new video that highlights just one of the Player-vs-Player (PvP) Warzones in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™!"


Check out the Video Now!

Eternity Vault Live Operation Video

This is the swtor part of the gamescom 2011 press conference from EA showing the 8 Player operation Eternity Vault. If you have ever played end game content in any MMO this will give you a good idea what your in for in SWTOR. Eternity Vault is a level 50 operation (Raid for the WoW players) and my got it looks good! Its nice to see the first boss is not a walk in the park as you will see in the video. Thanks to TOROZ for the heads up!

Sith suck balls and want to do your mom ... did we really want to hear it anyway?!

You know I understand why BioWare made the decision to separate global chat channels between factions. If you haven't heard, Georg Zoeller has clarified on the official forums that global chat will be separate between Sith and Republic: Read on

Sith suck balls and want to do your mom ... did we really want to hear it anyway?!

You know I understand why BioWare made the decision to separate global chat channels between factions. If you haven't heard, Georg Zoeller has clarified on the official forums that global chat will be separate between Sith and Republic but normal local chat will be able to be viewed by everybody and understood. By understood, in case you haven't played WoW before, Horde and Alliance and see each other saying stuff, but the text is scrambled. In a lot of other MMOs opposite factions do not get global or server wide communications. If they weren't separated we might see something like this:

From Georg Zoeller: “Guys, Let's back up for a minute and clarify what's going on here. Nothing has changed since San Diego Comic Con. As discussed at SDCC, the decision was made to separate the general chat channels by faction. However, this decision ONLY affects the planet-wide chat channels such as "General Chat." If you're standing next to another player (local chat), you can talk to them regardless of what faction you're part of. The only thing we removed, as already mentioned at Comic-Con, was the ability to communicate with the opposing faction across the entirety of a planet to avoid the issues (like griefing, abuse, and other factors which led to a very unpleasant experience) which we saw way too often in testing. We discussed the option of hiding the global chat and defaulting it off, but ultimately the ratio of negative incidents was too high to justify that. The reasoning here is simple: We really didn’t want to create a game option that essentially says "[x] Give me an 80% chance of having an infuriating and annoying chat experience," and putting the onus on the user ("you can just /ignore them") is not our idea of a quality game experience.Removing planet-wide cross-faction chat radically reduces the amount of reach a misbehaving player has before account action can be taken. We’ll likely add the ability to filter local cross faction chat as well. Hopefully that clears it up a bit.”

SWTOR FACE Class information

If your looking at playing Star Wars the Old Republic head on over to SWTOR Face to check out all the class information! What will you play? I'm still thinking of going Jedi Knight... but we will see!


I have just finished our class info pages  for all the classes in SWTOR. I will add information about all of the classes to this section as information is released.


If you know of any class specific blogs we are not listing please let us know and I'll add it to our class page

the pages cover all basic information on the class its companions and its ship with video's on the class and ship walk through's. Feel free to leave a comment or extra information in the class comments section.

Read on

SWTOR Full Class Information Online

I have just finished our class info pages  for all the classes in SWTOR. I will add information about all of the classes to this section as information is released.

If you know of any class specific blogs we are not listing please let us know and I'll add it to our class page

the pages cover all basic information on the class its companions and its ship with video's on the class and ship walk through's. Feel free to leave a comment or extra information in the class comments section.

Read on

SWTOR Class:Sith Inquisitor

Please go to our New Sith Inquisitor Page for the latest Information!  
SINISTER, DECEPTIVE, PRODIGY OF FORCE POWER

The history of the Sith Empire is fraught with scheming politics and dark secrets—the lifeblood of the Sith Inquisitor. Treachery hides around every corner in the Empire’s dark corridors, and survival depends on an individual’s natural cunning and the will to manipulate and defeat their enemies and allies alike. The Inquisitor experiments with forbidden powers to not only survive in this cutthroat environment, but to excel and seize authority.

Regardless of potential, few acolytes succeed in facing the rigorous trials to become Sith Inquisitors. Only the most determined acolytes attain such an achievement, but these Sith are often the ones to watch. Due to their manipulative genius, Inquisitors are skilled at exploiting both their enemies and their allies to further their own personal agendas. Channeling this Force energy, Inquisitors are capable of draining the life from their enemies and using it to feed themselves and their allies.

Though their skills are varied and many, Sith Inquisitors are most feared for their ability to channel the energy of the Force, making them a spectacle to behold on the battlefield. Seething sparks of lightning explode from the Inquisitors’ fingertips and wrap their enemies in tendrils of pure Force energy. Because Inquisitors can twist the Force into lightning to stun, subdue, or destroy their foes, it has become their signature. Those who have experienced the sensation of the Inquisitor’s Force Lightning and survived forever recoil from the crackling sound of electricity.

Read on

SWTOR Class: Imperial Agent

Please go to our New Imperial Agent Page for the latest Information!  
ASSASSIN, SABOTEUR, THE EMPIRE’S SECRET WEAPON

The Empire dominates scores of star systems across the galaxy, but not through the power of the dark side alone. Behind the scenes, the cunning Agents of Imperial Intelligence track down and eliminate the Empire’s enemies—from intractable Republic senators to traitorous Imperial Moffs to bloodthirsty rebels with Republic ties. Imperial Agents must master the arts of infiltration, seduction, and assassination to advance the Empire’s causes; they face the opposition of a terrified galaxy and the capriciousness of their own Sith overlords.

Imperial Intelligence cultivates a notoriously vast and efficient network of informants, enabling the Agent to navigate the galaxy’s political landscape with effortless suave. Naturally, the Agent’s allegiance to the Empire is without question, but great latitude exists for those so closely attuned to the Empire’s secret agendas—Agents often harbor their own mysterious motivations as well. Having pierced countless layers of intrigue, these spies know of conspiracies within conspiracies. Even close contacts find it hard to predict what an Imperial Agent will do until it’s done.

The most elite operative within Imperial Intelligence is the ‘Cipher’ Agent—recruited and trained to carry out the most dangerous and sensitive assignments the Empire has to offer. Whether working undercover or carrying out assignments in broad daylight, the Cipher races along the razor’s edge of disaster, using carefully orchestrated tactics that leave little room for error—the smallest slip-up can be catastrophic. Each successful mission, however, shifts the galactic landscape in the Empire’s favor, and the Agent plays a supremely critical role in securing Imperial domination.

Read on

SWTOR Class: Sith Warrior

Please go to our New Sith Warrior Page for the latest Information!  
CHAMPION OF THE DARK SIDE

An unstoppable force of darkness, the Sith Warrior is entrusted with the task of destroying the Empire’s enemies and enforcing Sith domination across the galaxy. The Warrior channels the destructive emotions of fear, anger, and hatred to purge weakness from body and mind and become a being of pure, brutal efficiency.

Destined to eradicate the incompetent chaos created by the Jedi, the Sith seek to rule the galaxy through power and intimidation. The armies of the Sith Empire are trained to accomplish this task, but they require the leadership of bold Sith Warriors—loyal and mighty overlords—who will drive them to conquest and victory.

These cold-blooded conquerors waste no time with cunning manipulations and carefully-crafted plans. Sith Warriors crush their opponents and stride toward their goals with dreadful determination, leaving ruin and annihilation in their wake. Emanating awe and terror at every step, they accept nothing but absolute obedience from their followers. In turn, Sith Warriors can serve as loyal subjects to their own dark masters, often surprising enemies and allies with their rigorous honor and perfect discipline.

Whether they align their ambitions with those of the Dark Council or become renegades in pursuit of their own goals, they are never far from the action. Their fierce hatred of the Jedi keeps Sith Warriors at the forefront of any conflict with the Republic. The passion to eradicate the Jedi Order fuels many of their actions, but that does not make them single-minded fools.

Ultimately, the destiny of any Sith Warrior is his own to choose… and woe to those who would stand in his way.

Read on

SWTOR Class: Jedi Knight

Please go to our New Jedi Knight Page for the latest Information!  
  VALIANT, DETERMINED, GUARDIAN OF PEACE

A symbol of hope in dark times, the Jedi Knight stands for the legacy of the Jedi Order—more than twenty-thousand years of protecting the Republic and keeping the peace across the galaxy. Though Jedi Knights have served as generals, guerilla fighters, and warriors for generations, their legendary combat prowess faces its greatest test during this age.

Through years of disciplined training and meditation, the Jedi Knight hones body and mind into perfect harmony. Combining the foresight of the Force with unrivaled reflexes and practiced physical precision, the Knight turns combat into an art form, gracefully executing acrobatic feats in tandem with elegant lightsaber tactics.

A source of inspiration to allies and intimidation to adversaries, the Jedi Knight’s presence is welcome in any confrontation. The Order’s long history of fighting for justice has earned the trust of countless friends and the hate of innumerable enemies. Few, though, are foolish enough to challenge a seasoned Jedi Knight unless they have the skills and technology to even the odds.

Read on

Choose your own adventure. The pitfalls of MMO

Recently I decided to give RIFT another go. I got an email stating that they made all these changes and added new content .. blah blah. So I thought, what the hell? My account is still active until October ... I'll give it another shot.

The first thing I was asked to do was to change realms as the realm I was on had been allocated as a trial realm. This is a really good idea. This allows the developer to have trial accounts that don't get used by spammers, and real players with real accounts are guaranteed that they're dealing with and speaking to other real players with real accounts.

So I transferred over to the new oceanic servers. TRION, the developer of RIFT, created two new oceanic specific servers about a month ago. Although this might have been six months too late for a lot of oceanic players, I was surprised to see the server full, in the middle of the afternoon, on a weekday. Although TRION didn't listen to the community that begged and pleaded with them to create an oceanic server when the game began, they have eventually seen sense.

If you haven't tried RIFT yet, I do recommend that you give it a go. The levelling and the  storyline/quests are not bad ... but, where RIFT seems to be lacking is with a real in-depth story. I couldn't even tell you the name of the world I'm in, and I've played the game on and off for over two months ... let alone tell you anything substantial about the main characters. The lack of cut scenes and true story-telling really let this game down. The graphics, interface, classes, and general world are all pretty good. I'd be so bold to even say that those elements are better than WoW but WoW also had the story-telling, dramatic heroes and villains, and cut scenes. In WoW I built up a true relationship with my character that was maintained over several expansions. It wasn't until they tried to re-hash old content that I found it was time to move on. Even with the best interface, if an MMO doesn't have a compelling story that attaches a player to their character, players will not spend real time in a game.

Another perfect example of this is Star Wars Galaxies. When the game was first released it was classified as a sandbox game. It was a massive open world, with no real guides but it was a world created within the Star Wars universe. The majority of the gamers were there because they love Star Wars. It was a buzz just hanging out at Anchorhead cantina, or going to Jabba's palace for the first time. The story was engrossed in the game and the complex character development system suited it perfectly. It wasn't until Sony was put under the pump by Lucas Arts to show a massive improvement that Sony made a critical error. They stopped listening to their community. They tried to copy the WoW model and at that very time destroyed everything that was potentially unique about the game. The simplistic character levels that they implemented just didn't work with the complex world they created.

So, back to my point, it doesn't matter how simplistic or complicated the MMO world is, the story is king. If you can't make a gamer get attached to his character, develop fps instead! If you are looking for a general idea of what Star Wars the Old Republic may be like, I suggest you download and play Mass Effect II. This will give you a general idea on what is possible with real story development.

PC Perspective's John Carmack Interview: GPU Race, Intel Graphics, Ray Tracing and Voxels and more!

I just got a chance to sit through PC Perspective's John Carmack Interview: GPU Race, Intel Graphics, Ray Tracing and Voxels and more!

For anyone interested in gaming and the future of gaming technology this is a must see!!

"Now to things of recent debate – infinite detail engines. He first clarifies that voxel engines and infinite detail topics are not the same thing and should not be treated as such. Carmack then states he believes “procedurally generated detail is usually not what you want.” A discussion that has been around for over a decade, truly useful procedurally generated content has never materialized though the ability to easily and efficiently manage the real data that you do create HAS. My favorite line? “Proceduralism is just a truly crappy form of data compression.” He continues to state that infinite detail isn’t really what’s important to future game development and instead we should be focusing on the “broad strokes” of artistic visions and build on them. “If you take uninspired content and go look at it at the molecular level, it’s still uninspired content.”

Also head on over to PC Perspective for a full transcript! 
   

Death of the GPU as we Know It?? Re-post from March 19 2008

This is a re-post from March 19 2008 on my old site www.tkarena.com.

Unlimited Polygons A Reality?

Well actually that sub-title is a white lie to get your attention. But don’t be too angry. What this article is about is something even better than unlimited polygons, it’s about unlimited voxels.

The legendary games programmer John Carmack, in an interview on PC Perspective in mid-March 2008 , spoke of a new technology he is working on:


“It involves ray tracing into a sparse voxel octree which is essentially a geometric evolution of the mega-texture technologies that we’re doing today for uniquely texturing entire worlds. It’s clear that what we want to do in the following generation is have unique geometry down to the equivalent of the texel across everything.”

Kind of a slim Friday update this week...

STAR WARS: The Old Republic Fan Friday

URL: http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20110812-0


With each Fan Friday, we feature creations from some of the clever members of the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ community. This time around we’re shining the spotlight on some of the incredible artwork done by our fans.

Be sure to check out this month’s Fan Site Spotlight where we talk to Chimaera, a great French site dedicated to bringing you the latest from The Old Republic. Also, we compiled a number of images from the “Return” cinematic trailer for you to download and use as your desktop wallpaper.

Read more…

Euclideon's Unlimited Detail in SWTOR or Another MMO?

As some of you may have seen I interviewed Bruce Dell on behalf of [H]ard|OCP and the video was published on Wednesday. I’ve had a couple of friends ask me whether Bruce’s Unlimited Detail technology would be viable for games like SWTOR. I have no doubt that the technology would improve games like SWTOR

but it’s far too late to make these ground breaking changes for that game, but they are working on technology that enables them to convert polygons into their engine, so conversions might actually be possible in the future. If this technology eventuates, it’s will make amazing changes to open world games. Read on

Euclideon's Unlimited Detail in SWTOR or Another MMO?

As some of you may have seen I interviewed Bruce Dell on behalf of [H]ard|OCP and the video was published on Wednesday. I’ve had a couple of friends ask me whether Bruce’s Unlimited Detail technology would be viable for games like SWTOR. I have no doubt that the technology would improve games like SWTOR but it’s far too late to make these ground breaking changes for that game, but they are working on technology that enables them to convert polygons into their engine, so conversions might actually be possible in the future. If this technology eventuates, it’s will make amazing changes to open world games.

In the demo, I found in excess of a hundred different items but yet people all over the net are criticizing the demo because it looks repetitive. I guess people just aren’t used to seeing that much information on the screen at once. 

If you go into WoW or and look at the zone Nagrad, for instance,

you can only see a max of three different tress in one scene, if that. There is far less detail and variety in WoW than in the Unlimited Detail video, and there will be less variety in SWTOR as well.

Euclideon are in need of a good map maker for their future projects. I look forward to seeing some well constructed maps to explore. You don’t realise how important view distance is until you get to experience something like this demo in real time. I watched the RAGE trailer this week after seeing Euclideon’s demo on Monday, and the graphics in RAGE looked horrible in comparison.

Having seen Euclideon’s technology first hand, now I feel like someone who got to see Blu-ray backs in the 80s, but then left stuck with VHS. Imagine standing in a world with this view:

This island was built to look like their logo and you are literally a pin-prick on the logo. each color is a major item like the purple dot is the elephant the light green is the cactus etc.  

This map would be as large as all of WoW … old and expansions put together. And there’s no loading between zones. This shot is looking over an area  the size of just 1 letter in the logo name.

Euclideon & Unlimited Detail - Bruce Dell Interview

[H]ard|OCP is proud to present this full feature video, behind the scenes interview I did with Bruce Dell, the founder and CEO of Euclideon and the original creator Unlimited Detail technology.

I interview's Bruce Dell for a full look into the past, present and future of Euclideon and the Unlimited Detail technology.

The small company of only 9 people in Brisbane Australia, were in the news again in early August 2011 after having released a demo video to give their fans a one year update. This video received almost 2 million hits in the first 4 days.

Euclideon are a very secretive bunch who normally decline interviews, but the public outcry for them to respond to their critics has been so great that they kindly agreed to this exclusive interview, letting [H]ard|OCP in before, the say, they must get back to work and disappear again until they have a final product.

Please head over to [H]ard|OCP for all the info.

Diablo 3 Beta Test Key! I Want it!!!

Diablo 3 beta announcement;

Countless hours of consulting the ancient prophecies and poring over dusty tomes have resulted in the unearthing of new information about Diablo III. The upcoming Diablo III beta test will introduce a treasure trove of exciting new features, including a new Auction House that will provide a powerful new way for your characters to acquire the implements of war. Prepare yourselves!

With the upcoming launch of the Diablo® III beta test, the armies of the Burning Hells will march forth from their forgotten lairs to besiege the mortal realms anew.

To prepare for this renewed demonic invasion, the Blizzard Insider has secured an exclusive interview with Lead Content Designer Kevin Martens as he shares his thoughts and insight on Diablo® III's upcoming beta test. So read on, and prepare yourself for the next chapter in the Diablo® saga.

Insider: Aside from the story elements, how are you tuning the game's combat encounters?

Kevin Martens: We want the game's difficulty to hit a range of "peaks" and "valleys" as the player progresses from battle to battle. During the "peaks", the challenge level spikes and players will be tested to their limits. In the "valleys", the difficulty relaxes and players can build up their health and energy again. From a gameplay standpoint, valleys are important because they allow players to learn and experiment with their abilities without too much fear of failure or death. It's the skills and techniques developed during the valleys that enable players to survive the peaks, which tend to be much tougher encounters, like ambushes, large groups, rare monsters, or even bosses. The peaks will require players to think quickly, spend their resources carefully, and move around the battlefield to avoid getting surrounded. Read on

This week in gaming

Some of you may have seen some of the updates we've done over at swtorface.com. The site's really coming together and I must say that I'm extremely excited about the game. I am in the process of gathering all of the individual class information and putting it into an easy to read template to help you choose the right class for you.

The only real gaming I've done over the last week was to finish off Portal 2. I got just as much satisfaction from Portal 2 as I did Portal 1, and I loved Portal 1. Kudos to the guys at Valve.

I have been meaning to try and get back to Duke Nukem Forever, I just can't bring myself to go any further in it. Only being able to carry two guns at a time and the repetitive gameplay style, just doesn't cut it anymore. The game is true to its origins. I am looking forward to a LAN party where I can truly test out multiplayer on Duke Nukem Forever with some mates, but I don't think I'll be bothering to finish the single player version.

Weekend update: Comic con and Jedi Consular Class Video

Whoot! It's the weekend! In this week's Friday update we have:

Jedi Consular Records
Long hours of study yielded important Consular details: specializations, a new class video, and more! Check out our class info section for all the goodies!

OOOOO I'm so tempted to make my main a consular!

2011 San Diego Comic-Con Highlights

This little video gives us a closer look at what happened at Comic Con:

For those of you who weren’t able to join BioWare in San Diego, they have put together a highlights video to share the San Diego Comic-Con experience with everyone. BioWare and LucasArts thank each and every one of you for your continuing support and excitement for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™!

SWTOR Class: Jedi Consular

Please got to the new updated Jedi Consular here

VISIONARY, AMBASSADOR, SEEKER OF JEDI WISDOM

For more than 20,000 years, the Jedi Order has worked to promote peace and balance in the Galactic Republic, but each new day brings with it a new threat, promising to rip the Jedi and the entire galaxy apart. If the Republic is to survive, it needs leaders and visionaries; it needs the Jedi Consular.

Jedi Consulars channel the power of the Force for strength in combat and wisdom in diplomacy. Years of arduous training and meditation have sharpened Consulars’ minds to cut to the truth as cleanly as their Lightsabers cut through their foes. Whether unlocking long forgotten mysteries of the Jedi, raising armies to fight for the Republic or engaging in mortal combat with Dark Lords of the Sith, the Consulars’ deep attunement to the Force gives them all the power they need to rise to the occasion with poise and balance.

Intimate attunement with the deepest Force mysteries gives Jedi Consulars the insight and empathy to deftly handle charged conflicts that confound even the most cunning Senators and governors—but Consulars know when it’s time to talk and when it’s time to fight. When negotiations turn aggressive, Consulars demonstrate their gifts of foresight—anticipating and deflecting enemy attacks with fluid strikes from their dual-bladed Lightsaber.

Read on

SWTOR Class: Smuggler

Please go to our New Smuggler Page for the latest Information!

QUICK, CLEVER, ANSWERS TO NO ONE

Sometimes luck is more important than skill, but it never hurts to have both.

Lawlessness has become common in the wake of the devastating war between the Republic and Empire. Shifting political allegiances and marauding pirates have made independent space travel a dangerous enterprise. Cut off from traditional supply routes, entire star systems waver on the verge of collapse. An adventurous spirit who’s not afraid to break a few rules can make a handsome profit hauling cargo to these hotspots, but it requires fast reflexes, fast wits and a fast draw with a blaster. Even then, the life of a Smuggler is always a gamble.

Stacking up enemies as fast as they stack up credits, Smugglers only survive in this galaxy by being slick, sneaky and street-smart. Whether sweet-talking an attractive alien or bargaining with a hardened criminal contact, the Smuggler’s charm is a notorious asset, and often the ticket to turning around a deteriorating situation. If circumstances get too complicated, though, count on a Smuggler to always have an escape plan. Experienced in flying under the radar, Smugglers are amazingly elusive. Yet when backed into a corner, they quickly become cunning and often deadly combatants.

Above all else, Smugglers make their own destinies. Despite their affinity for credits, Smugglers have been known to turn down lucrative opportunities when the clients have demanded too much control. Some Smugglers are even more discriminating—refusing to work with slavers and representatives of the Sith Empire. It’s a business where one is always looking for trustworthy allies, but they are often few and far between. Whether running an Imperial blockade or shooting down a double-crossing gangster, Smugglers are always flying by the seat of their pants. Every deal carries the chance for wealth beyond their wildest dreams… or an anonymous death in the harsh void of space.

Read on