Circling the planet Hutta is its largest moon – Nar Shaddaa, the ultimate corrupt city. Dominated by underworld concerns and owned by the Hutts, this sprawling mass of skyscrapers is considered one of the most dangerous and exciting places in the galaxy, where anything can be had for the right price.

There are things about this moon that are really interesting. Firstly, is BioWare going to create a lot more moons and satellites for different planets? One of the interesting things about Mass Effect was how you could fly from planet to planet, search the planet for resources and occasionally deal with the freaking thresher maw.

Another thing that I wouldn’t mind seeing is the ability to take off from the planet and fly to the moon without having to enter some “loading screen.” Since this goes hand in hand with my space combat article–I discussed how people might have the ability to fly freely around planets–I am hoping that it’ll become a possibility. The extra control really is fun in these games and I’d love to see it pop up in TOR.

While this is a moon, it is categorized in BioWare’s planets. This means that BioWare intends for it to be a large territory for people to appreciate. It differs from satellites and meteors that people can potentially search. I wouldn’t confirm this as an instance, but instead, this is a planet that will have different story arcs–major and minor.

This is an exciting release. We have the vile Hutta and now we have the glamorous Nar Shaddaa. That is really exciting. And, it will be especially exciting for those that play as the Bounty Hunter because I imagine a lot of their early quests are going to be on these two planets.

Pumped about Nar Shaddaa? Not really interested? Maybe I’m wrong. Chime in!

But, the problem I find is that PC Gamer won’t have their October issue our for another few weeks. This means I have to wait to find out what type of space combat there is going to be. And I just couldn’t have that. So, I began to speculate. I’ve come up with my own speculation on what space combat is going to look like. To begin with, though, we have to consider what space flight might be like. To have combat, one must first have flight.

The space flight, in my opinion, is going to be free to an extent. One of the things people talk about is flying around the galaxy freely. Unfortunately, that’s just not possible. The galaxy is massive, so to fly around freely would take forever. Legitimately, it would take many life times. Therefore, space travel will be free flying around the planet. If you want to fly around the planet and see other people flying around as well, all the better. But, if you are on Coruscant and you want to go to Alderaan, you’ll have to enter hyperspace. This will be similar to how travel was done in KOTOR and in Mass Effect.

So, what happens when there is a space battle going on? Good question.

Sean, the community manager at SWTOR, mentioned in the thread that you “fly” to the combat hot spot. “In space combat, you fly your personal ship to various “hot spots” on your galaxy map,” Sean said. That would suggest control over the ship on your way to combat. So, you leave hyper space and then you fly to the hot spot on the map, enter it and voila, combat begins. But, what will combat look like?

Space combat will be a mouse and keyboard operation. While many people have been hoping and praying for a joystick game, the truth is, this is a MMO, not a flight simulator. We’re going to be getting space combat to begin with, so I think that’s plenty. Maybe in future expansions BioWare will make it with a joystick, but right now, it won’t be.

Combat will probably be similar to what it looked like in Star Wars Galaxies. You’ll fly around in your ship and you’ll do damage to ships bigger than yours and smaller. It might not be as good–I’ve heard great things about it–but the space combat, overall, will probably be like that. They can’t do something more basic because people are hardcore expecting to enjoy the space combat. If they do something simple like an asteroids game, people will be very upset. I know I would be.

Because ship customization is going to be added to the game, this is where you’ll be able to make your ship stronger. While you will be able to make it look cool, you’ll also be able to add stronger shields, better weapons, and other things to make you a more formidable opponent in space. So, if you have the credits, you might be able to buy a stronger shield generator.

This is speculative. While I think the above might be what they do–it just seems like a basic, but still enjoyable experience–BioWare can really surprise us sometimes. I don’t think it’ll be a stupid mini-game, but it might not be as extravagant as I described. We’ll have to wait until PC Gamer releases their next issue so we can be better learned on what space combat is going to be all about.

According to the press release, what the Elements platform will allow EA to do is, “offer a breadth of new payment gateways, advanced virtual goods merchandising functionality, deep analytics capabilities, virtual item gifting, support for fictional (earned in-game) currencies, item storefronts, robust catalog management, cash-in flows and much more.”

This gives EA the chance to really monitor what they’re going to sell in their games and, more importantly, ensure that they are making enough money. The Old Republic obviously is costing a lot to make–five years in development, paying all of that voice talent and writers–so it’s understandable that EA wants to maximize their revenue.

But, the question that comes up is whether or not micro-transactions is the correct fashion.

What I’d like to see is a monthly subscription and then micro-transactions on top of that. Let me play the game without having to buy my gear, but if I want something special–a nifty colored lightsaber, a cosmetic added to my ship, or anything else–and I want to pay the $5.00 for it, so be it. We all know many people will do it. Just look at games put out by Zynga, the creator of Farmville. Some people spend $20-$40 a week on those games. So, people will obviously pay.

But, for many of us who don’t want to see microtransactions as a way of creating a hierarchy of “geared opponents” based on wealth, the above system works out best. But, EA is going to do what EA is going to do.

Unfortunately, what this agreement demonstrates is that EA is very serious about micro-transactions. All we have to wait for now is BioWare’s announcement about whether micro-transactions are, in fact, the payment method. I hope it’s not, but I am losing faith that my above system is the one that will be used.

What do you think? Are micro-transactions a better method or should we only have a monthly fee?

Because I had little knowledge on it–and still don’t–I asked one of the Apple employees. “Is there a growing market for gaming on Macs?” He was unable to give me an answer. So, I went and did a little research to determine if TOR would ever be made available for the Mac OS. I have an opinion, but first, let me flesh it out a bit.

To begin with, in 2009, Apple sold 3.9 million Mac machines during the holiday season. This includes the laptops as well as the desktops, but it poses an interesting point. More people are looking at the Mac as an alternative–albeit, an expensive one–to a Windows run PC. If people can wrap their heads around how expensive it is, chances are, people are going to choose a Mac. Is it a superior product? Many would say so; I can’t.

The Mac market share is growing. It’s growing slowly, but there are more people using Macs each year which should suggest something to gaming developers: more people who like to play games are still moving over to Mac. If these developers want to profit off them, they need to make their games compatible with the Mac OS.

But, it then leaves a question. Linux is slowly growing as well–much slower than Mac OS and Windows. So, should the gaming community make the games work on Linux as well? That’s the conundrum. No. Linux is such a tiny market share–not even two percent–that it doesn’t constitute making the games work for them.

The next big of information that suggests TOR might be coming to the Mac is a short bit of questioning at E3. James Ohlen, when asked about TOR coming to the Mac, said, “Um, currently I can’t talk about Mac… can’t talk about that. The only thing I can say is we’re coming out on the PC.” Thanks, AskAJedi, for the transcript.

Does anyone else see the hesitation? Why hesitate? Just say no.

Here’s my opinion on the whole thing. BioWare is going to release it on Mac. Whether it is released right when the game is available, though, is still a toss up. Here’s why. Chances are, EA is breathing down BioWare’s neck to get this game earning money. So, if it is too difficult to port the game over to Mac, EA will tell BioWare to hold off.

The reason James Ohlen can’t say anything about Mac is because they haven’t determined whether they are going to port it over at release or at a later time. There’s no reason not to, but they just need to determine if they can do it by release date.

I say they should. I want the game, but for my Mac brethren, I’d like for them to be able to play the game without having to reboot in Windows. Release the game in Mac. The market share is growing. More users want it over a PC. And if it means another 5% of users for BioWare, that’s the difference between a lot of potential profit.

I’ll touch more on the space combat at a later point–PC Gamer is doing an exclusive on it–so for now, let’s focus on what was revealed at “Crafting the Multiplayer Story.”

• Each of the classes in SWTOR have enough content to fill an entire KOTOR. While this is nothing new, it really is amazing to imagine how much content that means. There are currently eight classes and that means, in theory, they’ve created eight KOTORs for this game. That’s pretty sweet in my opinion.
• The story arcs are both worldly and galactic. What this means is that some of the quest arcs that you’ll be doing will be specific to the planet you are on. But, others that you will be doing are galactic.
• Your ship is customizable. This goes hand in hand with everything they’ve been talking about. They want you to truly appreciate your experience. I actually had some notes prepared about Fatal Alliance that fit in with this. There was too much mention of “modified ships,” but we’ll get to that when I finish.
• There is space combat. It should be noted, though, that the space combat doesn’t appear to be free-roaming. So, don’t expect to fly through space, happen upon a Sith/Jedi ship and open fire. Sean described it as, “Space combat is an alternative gameplay experience to the primary game of storytelling, questing, and ground-based combat. In space combat, you fly your personal ship to various “hot spots” on your galaxy map. From there, you will blast your way through asteroid fields, enemy fighters, frigates, destroyers, and a variety of other obstacles that will evoke memories of some of the great Star Wars™ space battles.” So, maybe I’ll be sitting in my cockpit dog fighting? We’ll have to wait and see.
• Once you are a part of a faction, you cannot switch. This, too, was also a question of mine. I’m at the part of the book where Shigar Konshi is with Darth Chratis and it’s obvious Chratis is trying to turn Konshi to the dark side. That would suggest faction change, but according to this panel, that is simply not possible.
• Not every class can play every race. This could potentially go against what I wrote about yesterday pertaining to aliens being open to mane different races, but we’ll have to wait and see. It could also suggest that they are, in fact, releasing races that are not force sensitives. We’ll have to wait and see on this. They wouldn’t reveal any other races, though.
• Mandalorians will play a huge part in this game. They are definitely going to be an interesting addition to the game.
• Progression is important. Crafting, tons of gear and other things. There are rewards for all of this.
• When grouping, if the group does something bad, if you choose good, you get light side points. This was an issue some were concerned about. When in a group, if three chose to do an evil act and you chose to do a good act, the evil act would be done. But, you’d get light side points for wanting to do the good act.
• Alderaan’s families are split. Family Organa is on the Republic’s side. Family Thulu is on the Sith side. Easily a great way for there to be serious problems.
• Lightsabers will be visually restricting. Double bladed Jedi Consular is a DPSer. Therefore, if you see a single bladed Jedi Consular, that means that they are geared toward something else.

This whole event turned into a huge Q&A which is always cool. Very little was provided about the overall “multiplayer” experience, but at least we know that there isn’t a problem if you choose to do something light sided and the rest of the team does something dark. This will put some people’s fears to rest. And, most importantly, there’s space combat! Wait until August when PC Gamer’s issue comes out. You can bet I’ll devour that for information for you guys!

The overall purpose of the game is to bring your Star Wars fantasy to life. Now you can play as a Jedi Knight. Or, you can play as Darth Vader–I’ll admit, seeing a bunch of heavy breathing robotic Sith Warriors is going to irk me. And, you can shoot lightning. It would be incredibly limiting if I had to play the Sith Warrior role as only one or two alien species.

Therefore, I don’t see them making that a possibility. That doesn’t mean, though, that there won’t be faction-specific species.

First off, as mentioned in the article, Daniel Erickson specifically stated that, “The Chiss are actually the only aliens we’ve shown that are fully allied with the Empire, the Empire tends to actually be very anti-alien.” This is very much a grab from the Empire from the movies. It makes no sense for the Empire to be very anti-alien because the Emperor fought alongside the likes of original Sith such as Naga Sadow who was a Sith/Human hybrid.

But, I get that the Chiss are a faction based species. But, that’s about as far as that can go. If BioWare tries to take the Chiss and say, “Well, since Admiral Thrawn was a Chiss and he was similar to the Imperial Agent, we’re going to make the Chiss all that,” it defeats the overall experience. There have been Chiss force users. For example, Sev’Rance Tann was a Chiss who learned the Dark Side. So, there’s no reason why a simple switch could allow a Chiss user to be also a Force user.

Now, I can understand where Matt is coming from. Little evidence currently presented to us suggests that alien races are open to everything. But, there is also little evidence to suggest that BioWare is trying to create a game that goes with the archetypes. Its classes were archetypal–if you want to play as a smuggler, chances are, it’s because you love Han Solo–but there’s no evidence to suggest the same for the species. As mentioned above, Thrawn is the favorite Chiss. So, when talking about archetypes, he is the Imperial Agent. But, since there isn’t any evidence to suggest that species has to be connected to an archetype, I see no reason why it is going to appear.

As his evidence goes on to show in a lot of the work there after, it appears as if the aliens won’t be class specific. Sure, the media has shown some instances of class specific aliens, but in reality, it’s shown only single instances. So, it’s not likely that the class will be the deciding factor for the alien.

Instead, what you will see are classes only available as NPCs. For example, you won’t be able to play as a Hutt. You won’t be able to play as a Wookiee. The Hutt will be too difficult to play because you’d have to create entirely new armor for it and the Wookiee because everyone would play as a Wookiee then. If I am wrong and there are Wookiees, you at least have your smuggler or bounty hunter role because there won’t be any force sensitive Wookiees.

I am with Matt when I say that I really hope BioWare doesn’t make class specific aliens. They will limit the aliens to bipedal ones because that’s the easy to suit in armor. But, they won’t do much to limit who can play as what species. A Jedi Knight Rattataki won’t be impossible even if everything suggests that they are always dark side. Unless BioWare says otherwise, I see them being free to everyone. So, while the Gormak does look a bit evil, there’s nothing stopping him from being a Trooper–if he is even released as a playing species.

But, you can expect to see some faction specific aliens. The Chiss have to be Empire because they are in the Empire territory. It doesn’t mean you might not see a Chiss NPC who is Republic, though. Players just won’t have the opportunity to play that.

With such little information available right now about aliens, it’s hard to make a choice on what is going to happen. But, because BioWare has talked about fulfilling that Star Wars fantasy and, more importantly, allowing customization where ever they can, I don’t see them infringing on people’s playing by limiting aliens to different classes. So, it is with great enthusiasm that I say aliens won’t be class specific.

The only problem I can see coming from this is that creating that much music and sound for such a large MMO should be a daunting task. While it might have been, it seems as if BioWare and LucasArts had no problem doing it. The composers of LucasArts all got together and worked on writing a ton of music. And, the sounds people made unique sounds that really are great. The music and sound, while it won’t make or break the game, will really add so much to the experience.

Music in TOR

To begin with is the music. Music is so important when it comes to Star Wars. I can remember first popping A New Hope into the VHS–oh yeah, the VHS–and listening as the opening words crawled up the screen with that epic music. Or, how about when we first are introduced to Darth Vader? The Imperial March? All of these different songs had such an impact on the experience and added to what made the movies as amazing as they were.

Fortunately, we can expect to see the exact same, epic type of music in TOR. In their most recent Developer’s Dispatch, BioWare released a bunch of information on what the music is going to be like. The five minute video talked about the composition of music and about what went into making the music.

To begin with, the game is going to have five and a half hours of original music to complement KOTOR music as well as music written by John Williams. In other words, we will hear music that was from the KOTOR games as well as stuff John Williams wrote for the original movies. But, on top of that, five and a half hours of music was recorded just for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

John Williams’ music was included because, as they said in the video, he really created the emotional landscape for the movies. We got attached to what was going on because of the music. When you hear that Cantina Band play, you know it even if you don’t see their funny faces. Williams made that possible and the game wouldn’t be the same without the music.

We can expect to see choral music as well as orchestra music. One of the choral pieces demonstrated has a similar sound to the Duel of the Fates song found in Phantom Menace. I can remember watching Darth Maul fight Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui Gon Jinn with this song in the background. At the same time, there are full, romantic orchestras performing music. There are fifteen first violins and fourteen second violins to just describe the strings. There are so many pieces coming together to make the music.

The overall point of the music is to add to the landscape. If you are walking through Dromund Kaas and suddenly the music changes, you know that something is bound to happen. It helps to add to the suspense of the game and to provide warnings to the game.

Overall, the music really adds to the game and makes the game stand out as a unique experience. When I am fighting against a Sith Warrior as a Jedi Knight, the music will be epic. But, what would the game be without some equally epic sound effects?

Sound in TOR

The developer blog written about sound is in depth and quite enjoyable. It opens with a small quote by George Lucas that really is so true. “Sound is 50 percent of the moviegoing experience, and I’ve always believed audiences are moved and excited by what they hear in my movies at least as much as by what they see.” When that lightsaber turns on, we know what it is and it excites us.

The first section was about the voice. As we all know by now, the game is completely fully voiced. That is just awesome. When I talk to a NPC and then talk to a different one, there will be two different voices. In my opinion, that rocks. It takes an “army to do something like this.” And it really does. They need so many different people. While one voice actor might do different roles for the same project, they might change their voice to still make it sound unique. The voice is going to be awesome.

The next section is about aliens. This is so important. We are talking about the unique different voices that are not speaking basic. We are talking about communicating in an entirely different language. We are talking about different species talking in their native language. Without these different languages, the game would sound dry. Why would a Wookie speak in basic? Exactly.

Combat sound is so important. One of the things that is exciting about the sound they are creating is that different weapons will have different sounds. It’s more detail they don’t need but are adding regardless. If I use a pistol, it’ll sound one way. If I use a massive rifle, it will sound an entirely different way. But, it’s also exciting because different lightsabers will make different sounds. This just adds to the experience.

One of the things they do say, though, is that they are not looking to drown the game out with sounds. While you might hear lightning in the background on Dromund Kaas, that doesn’t mean it’s all you’ll hear. It just adds a little to the experience without being overpowering.

In the end, music and sound is so important for the game. Star Wars had great music and the sounds were such a big part of the experience. This game is going to include things that the games had, only this time, it’ll be so much larger than any movie or game could ever be. I am so pumped for this.

The description given to this comic is as followed:

In the seventh issue of Blood of the Empire™, Teneb Kel finds himself beaten and bloodied in the aftermath of the Lenico colony’s destruction. Trapped on a strange planet, he must draw upon the ancient Sith arts in order to ensure his survival–and to learn the secrets he needs to resume his vendetta against Exal Kressh.

One of the things that stands out for me is the page where the Jedi padawan runs into Teneb’s servant on the ship. Warrior class? That is interesting. Could he betray Teneb because the Jedi is so supportive or can we expect to see him to stay loyal to Teneb?

And, what about this new Sith–at least, I presume he is a Sith–that has that across the face mask. The first thing is that the mask looks really cool and might find its way into the game. BioWare doesn’t really release stuff unless they are going to include it in the game, so something as exciting as that in the comic is, chances are, going to pop up. But, you never know.

Over at Darth Hater, they released an image of a future comic where the Jedi Master and Teneb clash with each other. I am pumped to see that because finally, the Jedi catch up with Teneb. I know that the Padawan has been following them, but the fact that they finally caught up is exciting.

What do you think of the new comic? Leave a comment and tell us what you think of it. Any predictions about what is going to happen in the future?

The way I tallied the results were simple. I went through the entire newsletter list and pasted all of the emails into an Excel document. I then went through each email and cross referenced it with a comment. If a comment appeared, I then gave a point for everything they did: following on Twitter, joining the Facebook group and retweeting the post. For every point someone got, I copy and pasted their email again. So, if someone did everything, they got four total points.

This left me with a number next to each email. So, someone might have number 56, 57, 58 and 59. If that number appeared at all in the random generator, you got the winner. The generator that I used was random.org. I requested two integers to appear between 1 and 122. Then, random.org spit out two random integers. I cross referenced those two integers to the page and the winners were revealed to me. And, it is without further ado, that I present the two winners.

The winners are:

Ajay M and Zefram Cochrane.

Both of these individuals are going to be emailed personally. I thank everyone for participating in the contest. I thank TFAW for sponsoring it. It was really a great experience and I am glad that so many people got interested. For those that did not win, please head on over to TFAW and consider buying the comics. You can get the first upcoming three for less than $10. And they’ll be sent to you as they are released.

Thanks again for such a great contest!

What I am finding very interesting about their testing is that they are doing it in phases. Perhaps other games do it the same way, but I think it is really going to be an effective way of doing it. They had this to say:

Game Testing is an on-going process being rolled out in several phases. These phases began with smaller, more focused tests with community members from North America, and later will expand to other territories. Users selected for the test program will be notified via email with more information on accessing the Game Testing Portal. If you’ve not been chosen yet, you may be selected in the next wave!

They are going to start with very small groups and then expand. So, their first step is to find the large bugs that might not have been found in Alpha testing. So, the small groups will go around and when they find that the big alien can’t be destroyed, they’ll note that so BioWare can go in and fix it. But, these small groups won’t stress the servers at all. The rumors posted a few weeks ago suggested this type of system with only around 200 people testing.

As the game testing expands, they’ll begin to find what levels of people start to stress the servers out. With their latest reveal about Monolith-Monitoring for TOR, they will definitely get the information they need during testing to try and alleviate the launch problems that most games are cursed with.

One of the things that I can truly appreciate about BioWare is that they do reveal amazing games. Because of that, I am confident that this testing is really going to do a good thing. And, when the game is released, while there will be problems–there are always problems–I am confident that the game will be less glitchy than many others.

If you get the email asking you to be a tester, that’s fantastic. If you don’t, that’s alright. Rest easy knowing that those that do get the job will do the best they can to make the game you get to experience that much greater. And, if you are chosen to test, please do your job the best way you can. The better you work, the better the game will be for us. And, the harder you work, the sooner we can get the game.