First Star Wars: The Old Republic video offering now available!

by Michael Zenke Dec 12th 2008 at 2:45PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, Video, New titles, Free-to-play, Star Wars: The Old Republic

As promised yesterday, the first video offering from the Star Wars: The Old Republic team is now available! Though it's only about five minutes, it offers a ton of great insight into what BioWare and LucasArts will be offering with this title. There's no obvious new information, but there are a bunch of subtle hints about what we might expect to see this ambitious MMO experience. Whether mictrotransactional or not, this game is going to be a one-of-a-kind offering for the genre ... and here's your chance to see the first footage!

Click on through below the cut for the first video offering from Star Wars: The Old Republic, and then head over to our quickie feature pulling apart the details of the video.

Gallery: Star Wars: The Old Republic Concept Art

Tags: bioware, breaking, documentary, lucasarts, star-wars-the-old-republic, swtor, video

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

JP said on 2:50PM 12-12-2008

I know it's early, but I would have liked to see more "multiplayer" action, rather then 1v1 Jedi battles.

Still, I like the stylized look. Especially since they fixed the lightsabers.

Lemmo said on 3:05PM 12-12-2008

I like the direction they're going. Even if it's just multiplayer KOTOR (which it sounds like it's more than), I can't really see this project messing up at this point.

Paithan said on 3:06PM 12-12-2008

I would have liked to have seen more of the companions.

But hey, its a start!

david said on 3:17PM 12-12-2008

Hopefully it doesn't fail like AOC... Remember the hype from that game? Hopefully TOR > AOC :)

Mr. Pickles said on 4:12PM 12-12-2008

Um...ok, we get it, you hate Age of Conan. But, it's incomparable to SW:TOR because that's a comparison of Funcom vs. Bioware...and Bioware is like 200,000 rungs above Funcom on the gaming latter.

Seriously, look at each developer's track record:

-Bioware has released many AAA+ titles that have dedicated fans, 90%+ reviews, and some of the best content in any game to date.

-Funcom has released AO in a crap state that didn't get near "complete" until after a year after it's initial retail release. They did the same with Age of Conan which still has another 5 months to go to reach that state.

Now, look at the backing companies:

-SW:TOR is backed by LucasArts (gold!) and EA international, which overlooking their many sports games they still pump out many great games.

-AoC is backed by Eidios, who is so far widely known for the Kain&Lych review buyout from Gamespot and even the attempted buying of reviews for the lastest Tomb Raider game.

So, I'm sure it's safe to say that SW:TOR won't have anything near the issues that AoC has/had because they're not being touched by the crappy companies that touched that game.

Back on topic: I'm interested with this game, but wonder with everyone having a Companion and being in a space hub (city), would the AI system lag the hell out of the area? Also,...Sith vs. Jedi...will this game be strongly PvP oriented to fit into the Star Wars universe? It needs to be, cause I would hate to go into a city and see 3-4 Sith running around without being able to strike them down on a Jedi.

Reader said on 4:56PM 12-12-2008

The Longest Journey is still the coolest game around.

Nakirush said on 3:20PM 12-12-2008

My main concern is that they're pushing Jedi so strongly. I want to know more about the other classes and how they're going to keep this from becoming a Jedi cluster.

phobic99 said on 3:19PM 12-12-2008

I'm really not trying to get my hopes up (only to be disappointed) but I like what I see so far.

Arashikou said on 5:55PM 12-12-2008

Yeah - in a way, I'm almost glad to see all the naysayers and hate around here and Bioware's site. I'm so tired of games getting massive hype and universal love over all their awesome features that by all rights should guarantee success, followed by a debilitating crash after launch.

I'm starting to think I'll only love an MMO again when it stays off my radar, then jumps out and surprises me.

Draimen said on 7:11PM 12-14-2008

That video was just pure awesome. I know it's pre-alpha, but even so, they look like they're doing a great job. This will definitely be the new MMO I play if they can deliver on what they're promising.

Devlin said on 4:28PM 12-12-2008

Meh. Paraphrased: "We didn't want it to look like anything else out there". It looks like KoTOR with a dash of WoW. So far, no thanks.

Matt said on 5:00PM 12-12-2008

Um... it's going to be a Jedi cluster. The Old Republic era has plenty of wiggle room in terms of the number of Jedi running around.

Man, the HeroEngine is looking fantastic.

Temko said on 5:11PM 12-12-2008

So far

- We've got WoW-type progression (Quests and lots of grind + Item gathering)
- "Choice" (i'm thinking you get to pick 1 of 2 things, Good or Evil and then get Positive or negative "force points" that you go Sith or Yedi) ...original? fuck no
- Micropayment... so... no thanks so far.

Everrest said on 6:55PM 12-12-2008

Sadly i'm gonna have to agree with Temko. I didn't see anything there that was truly innovative or piqued my interest.

I enjoyed both Kotor games and i like the universe, but it takes more than a good setting to make a decent mmo (as evidenced by AoC).

Morever, there is a reason MMO's traditionally move away from story type choice elements. And its because developers will never be able to provide enough options to be meaningful, or properly differentiate the hundreds of thousands of people that play the game.

It just ends up looking arbitrary and silly.

Holgar said on 7:22PM 12-12-2008

Hype Hype Hype and a love affair with Lucas arts fails to impress me however IF they actually live up to everything they say they are going to it will be the game to end all games.

But we already had one of those already *cough*Conan*cough*

While I would LOVE to play somthing as good as they say it will be I really don't got my hopes up after that gushing about lucas arts.

Jack said on 9:02PM 12-12-2008

Sorry but apart of some pre render stuff without any interface what so ever it was just a lot of talk mostly old info. There was a content claim "more content them all bio ware games put together" well I did play all Bioware games and can tell you that is around 4 times all the content of WoW+bc+Wotlk. I wish them good luck with that claim!

No details no reveals just a lot of talk and no action so far apart of the art style no reveals what so ever.

InfamousBrad said on 12:39AM 12-13-2008

Interesting. Go back through it, and watch every lightsaber attack. Not the path the blade follows, or how the character moves, but specifically where it ends up. Every single attack I saw ended centered on the target's center mass. That's how they can have all kinds of flashy combat animations and still have the blocks and parries connect with the blade. Of course, that's going to require that characters in combat surrender exact control of their positioning, like with The Matrix Online's "Interlock" system, so yeah, bet me: once you start a fight in SW:TOR, until you managed to break it off and get out of saber range of the target, you aren't going to be able to move except as the animator moves you.

This game has potential, but people are going to whine and cry the first time they make a choice in the game, get that choice's reward, and then perceive (rightly or wrongly) that characters who made another choice got a better reward than they did. Also expect a lot of screaming from people who insist that they only want one character, and think it's unfair that they can't experience all of content with their single character. So it's an open question in my mind as to what's going to happen when all that howling begins, and all those people start petitioning the developers and threatening to quit if they dont' "nerf" getting stuck with the results of your choices. Whoever has to tell them no, if indeed anybody does tell them no, is going to be about as popular as, well, Jack Emmert.

Dan Tayor said on 9:56AM 12-16-2008

Wow. :O This looks outstanding, even in the pre-alpha phase. The lighting and character interactions look completely believable and realistic, even in this 'stylized' reality.

Microtransactions or not, BioWare looks like they've got a great product on their hands...here's to hoping they keep up the great work!