One of the most common questions asked regarding Star Wars: The Old Republic and the easily accessible Jedi is, "Who's going to take on an army of Jedi?" We've long since had the answer tucked away here at Massively, but now BioWare has been kind enough to illustrate it for us in their latest timeline update, which features the fearsome Mandalorians.

The nomadic Mandalorians are strikingly unique and much like the Jedi and Sith in that sense they're not an actual species; yet war is their singular goal in life. Their mantra is that strength is not merely good, it is great, it brings honor through battle. Thus, it's no surprise that Mandalorians are generally opposed to the Jedi and get along better with the power hungry Sith. At this point, the Republic Trooper's coutnerpart is pretty obvious. That powerful Jedi army doesn't seem so intimidating against legions of Sith, Bounty Hunters and bred-for-war Mandies, now does it?

We highly recommend you check out the timeline video. It's not only informative, but quite entertaining if you've got even the slightest amount of interest in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Those attending Comic-Con 2009 will have a chance to get up close and personal with some of the developers of the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the team has now filled in the details of their visit:

• Their panel will be called "Behind the Scenes: The making of Star Wars: The Old Republic", taking place in room 7AB on Friday the 24th of July, from 1:00PM to 2:00PM. This will feature the most SWTOR devs of the show.
  
• Signed "Threat of Peace" comics will be given away from Thursday through Saturday at the Lucasfilm booth (booth #2913) and Dark Horse Comics (booth 2615).
• The "Deceived" cinematic trailer will be shown at the Lucasfilm booth (booth #2913) on Saturday and Sunday, at 11am, 1pm, 3pm, and 5pm.
• The Star Wars Spectacular special event, hosted by Olivia Munn and Kevin Pereira from G4, will happen on Friday the 24th of July at 5:15PM to 6:15PM in Hall H. The show is about everything Star Wars, so it won't be entirely SWTOR, but it will definitely be included.

Comic-Con International goes from the 23rd of July through to the 26th. Although the show is currently sold out (and no passes will be sold at the door), you can find more information about the event at the official website.

It's probably not much an exaggeration to say that Star Wars: The Old Republic is one of the most hotly anticipated MMOs slated for release in the not-too-distant future. (At least if our traffic related to The Old Republic is any indication.) While the E3 2009 trailer was absolutely stunning the real question is, what will the actual game look like? An impressive trailer means very little if a game doesn't meet expectations.

We've seen bits and pieces of SWTOR gameplay over the past few months, but the guys over at Wandering Goblin came across a compilation of pretty much all of the released in-game footage to date. A fan named "xxHIMxx" compiled it all, and is definitely worth a look for anyone interested in the game, showing off some of the scenery and combat mechanics to be found in Star Wars: The Old Republic. We've got a video embed for you after the jump:

Sure, the Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer from E3 may have been lacking in the gameplay department, but that didn't stop it absolutely rocking the socks off anyone that saw it. The people that made that possible are from Blur Studio, specialists in CG animation for games, films, and commercials. The IGN video above features an interview with Derron Ross, an animation supervisor for the company. He explains that although you might not realize it in the final products, a ton of the highest quality game videos are from Blur -- as an example, one of the early Warhammer Online trailers that a lot of you will have seen is from them. Ross goes on to describe what it takes to create something with such dangerously high levels of awesomeness.

If this little behind-the-scenes look at the SWTOR trailer has you craving more CG goodness, Blur's website has links to a ton of their other works for your viewing pleasure.

This weekend begets the final chapter for Star Wars: The Old Republic's ongoing Threat of Peace free online webcomic. If you haven't seen many -- or any -- now would be the perfect time to read through the entire series, as the story should feel much more cohesive without being cut off every four pages.

We'd just like to mention that it would be very cool if the Sith Empire droid Espee continues to make regular appearances in forthcoming issues. We love Espee, almost solely because he's a quirky and strangely well meaning Sith Empire droid.

With the end of chapter one, we're curious to see whether future chapters continue with the same schedule and page count. It's also possible that the comic's creator seats could rotate, much like traditional comic books. Nothing has been announced or clairified yet, of course, so this is pure pie-in-the-sky pondering on our part. Still, it'd be nice if BioWare kept things fresh and experimented a little to find out what works best.

Giant Bomb has been pumping out some great videos from E3 2009, but we of course took immediate notice of this interview with two Star Wars: The Old Republic developers from BioWare. Most of the conversation revolves around information we already know, until one of the devs reveals, "we have literally thousands of roles which are voiced in our game, which are done by many, many hundreds of voice actors." We knew there was going to be a lot of people, but, okay we didn't expect that many!

Hundreds.

Much of the Massively crew agreed that Star Wars: The Old Republic's classes would be limited to four or five on each side, due to the fully-voiced announcement. Now we're thinking differently with thousands of roles filled by many hundreds of voice actors. Suddenly, six or seven per side doesn't seem like a far away fever dream.

If you'd like to see how it ends when you ask a BioWare dev about SWTOR's release date, check out the full video after the break.

It feels like a new MMO is being released every month these days and the market for persistent online games is certainly expanding. At the head of this market is a set of games commonly referred to "triple A" titles. These are popular games from big name studios or games using popular intellectual properties. New games that are considered "triple A" have a unique ability to build unparalleled levels of anticipation and hype around themselves prior to release. In order to draw in as many players as possible, an obscene amount of cash is often spent on advertising to hype these games up for release. But is this appropriate and cost-effective or does it show a fundamental misunderstanding of of the MMO market?

In this article, we look at what can go wrong with over-hyped MMO launches and what happens when the subscriber bubble bursts.

E3 2009 has come and gone, with it came new information on Star Wars: The Old Republic -- and fresh concerns. To call BioWare ambitious would be an understatement of vast proportions. Every NPC receiving full voice acting ratcheted up my curiosity as much as it did my eyebrows. We may need a new word to describe the depths of this game's ambition.

As if the voice acting news wasn't enough, BioWare revealed a cinematic trailer that reminded me how powerful this property can truly be, in the right hands. The excitement was so immediately potent that it caused some people to cry "over-hyped!" in the few short minutes between the trailer's beginning and ending.

I think it's time to asses the current situation, and maybe ponder a few things about Star Wars and BioWare.

Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009 proved to be a significant event for the gaming industry once again, with a fair amount of news and announcements related to MMOs. Massively was there on the ground for E3 this year and we've been putting up breaking announcements, interviews, and hands-on previews throughout.

Given how much info came out of E3 on Massively, here's a roundup of our coverage, day-by-day. Be sure to check out the rest after the jump as there's plenty more content, plus you'll find E3 galleries for these games as you click through. To cap it all off, we've also put together an E3 2009 wrapup video for you at the end of this post. Read on to see where the MMO industry is headed in the next year and beyond!

• Star Wars: The Old Republic world's first fully-voiced MMO

• Final Fantasy XIV announced

• Jumpgate Evolution releases E3 trailer

• EA to publish All Points Bulletin in 2010

• PlayStation Home hits 6.5 million accounts

• Trion World Network unveils Heroes of Telara

• Massively's day 1 video from the E3 floor

Star Wars: The Old Republic's free online comic, Threat of Peace, has reached issue number eight and finally introduced one of those lovable droids. It's safe to say that so far throughout this storyline, many of the prominent characters and their prospective races featured in this comic have the potential to be in-game racial options. Humans, Twi'leks and Wookiees have all been popular thus far, and now it looks like droids may in fact be a possibility. It's positively delightful!

Of course, races that have seen the limelight in Threat of Peace aren't the only signs of things to come. Bounty Hunters and Troopers both received notable attention. Whether or not this sets any kind of reasonable precedent is something we'll leave up to you, however.

BioWare's lead combat designer Damion Schubert discusses creating the Trooper class today over at the official Star Wars: The Old Republic website. It's not too difficult to understand the heart of the Trooper: he's got a huge gun and makes everything in his path explode. The difficult part of the Trooper was making it something that could go toe-to-toe with Sith both in the actual game and in players' minds. It had to be cool, exciting and a whole lot of fun to play.

Of course, as Damion points out at the end of his journal, the Trooper isn't all about massive amounts of firepower. The class packs an assortment of morale-themed party buffs too, which are able to strengthen himself and the party. While this feature was assumed on our part, this is the first we've heard of morale-based class abilities. Consider us curious to find out more in the future.

In case you missed its debut over the weeked, we've embedded the dev video on The Trooper after the jump.

We've completely zerg rushed E3 2009, attending press events, demonstrations and sure, hitting some parties as well. But we've also gone out and interviewed the people behind the games that will be arriving on the MMO scene in the next year and we've got a lot to tell you in the coming days.

As the constant hustle of E3 2009 came to a close yesterday and the swarm of game journos scatters, now is when we really shift into high gear; Massively's content over the next few days will feature loads of info and interviews fresh from E3. We'd say to keep your eyes open for it, but honestly you won't be able to miss it. For now though, here's a quick roundup of yesterday's coverage:

• Star Wars: The Old Republic demonstration

• Paul Barnett and the Suicide Girls present All Points Bulletin

• Ether Saga Online set to go live this month with world bosses

• Massively looks at Perfect World International: Age of Spirits

• Jade Dynasty at a glance

• Dungeon Fighter Online impressions

Still hungry? We've also put together galleries for these MMOs after the jump:

The trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic blew nerds around the world away, and has managed to build some of the greatest hype possible for an MMO in just a few short days. The question has been asked whether or not a trailer which contains absolutely no gameplay footage should be producing that sort of hype, but that trailer wasn't all that we saw of the upcoming MMORPG at E3. A panel dedicated to The Old Republic had much more to say.

The panel opened up with the stage being set: The Old Republic begins 3,000 years before the rise of Darth Vader, 300 years after the events of Knights of the Old Republic, which would give BioWare an excellent opportunity to define and expand upon key events of Star Wars "pre-history."

The entire presentation laid a significant emphasis on story and story elements. Right from the beginning, the developers lay out it: RPGs have four primary elements. Exploration, combat, progression, and story. The story element is the one most overlooked in MMOs, and The Old Republic intends to address that head on. They intend to embrace story right alongside the other RPG elements. It will be a major player, and not something just used to justify the other elements.

E3 2009 is turning out to be quite a show this year and Massively is right in the middle of it all to report on the MMO news. We got a head start on E3 and reported a bit on what's happening before the Expo officially kicked off and it looks like we'll have plenty more to share with you before E3 is over. Here's our recap of day 1 in MMO news from Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009, and be sure to click through to the E3 galleries we've got after the jump.

• Star Wars: The Old Republic world's first fully-voiced MMO

• Final Fantasy XIV announced

• Jumpgate Evolution releases E3 trailer

• EA to publish All Points Bulletin in 2010

• PlayStation Home hits 6.5 million accounts

• Trion World Network unveils Heroes of Telara

Boatloads of screenshots after the jump!