Well with PAX coming to a close, it is a sad day Mainly because I had to leave the "Oh so beautiful Seattle, Washington". There is MUCH to cover, and instead of covering JUST the demo, I would much rather cover my experience at PAX

 

To start, we got a hour and a half early entry on Friday, in which both Pete and I spent browsing the floor, and grabbing as much free goodies as we could because once 10 O'clock hit, it was business time. Personally, I spent anywhere from six to eight hours of PAX at the Cantina With Sith Smoothies and Wookie Cookies, the food and drink issue was solved. The layout for the Cantina was nice, yet a little cramped due to the free green screen photos, see Leo Olebe's Greenscreen Video But couches were around and bar stools surrounded high tables for quick and easy friend making. The atmosphere was great Star Wars fans seeking refuge quickly scurried to the "Off the beaten path" Cantina area. Located on floor three, instead of four. We, Pete and I, made quick friends of Sean Dahlberg and Leo Olebe, later we found Donna happy as can be, and we cannot forget Deborah Shin, what a great personality But it soon came down to business time.


We went to Sean Dahlberg first, and I must say, a great guy all around Always helping people confused with the game, answering questions, and never afraid to have fun Sean, you were a huge talk of our crowd No pseudo accounts here We talked to him about the user interfaceand Fan Kits, and he states how important they are. Also, humans are not his pick We also talked to him about group and solo play, and it sounds like he plans on being the group oriented player. See the interview here. We also cannot forget the great interview with the one and only Donna Prior We learned of her forum beginnings

Our next task was recording audio and video for the Q&As. We located ourselves close to the action. From there, the first day was hosted by Jake Neri and Blaine Christine, the second day was hosted by Jake Neri, Blaine Christine, Tim Temmerman, and Dallas Dickinson, the third day being short of Jake Neri. During these Q&As we were able to host two live sessions. Many questions asked, many were also shot down by the "We can't talk about that" aka, taking the bullet But overall, a great experience being there hearing what they had to say.


Once day two came along, we were treated with the announcement of Knights of the Old Republic now available on Direct2Drive and Steam with everyone receiving a free copy who attended PAX, AND the first demo We waited in line for two hours, and we were not let down. The room boomed at full capacity, and four large screens all around to view the demo. The intro played, and was body shockingly loud But at no delay they shot into the demo, displaying the first time seen Female model as a bounty hunter. Replaying what was seen at the GamesCom demo, a world known as Hutta (Nal Hutta). And we get to see the hot key bar with a health stimpack. The female Bounty Hunter has the curves you would expect, and moves as you would expect as well. As the Bounty Hunter leaves after accepting the quest, watching the video you might notice a slight skip, we SPECULATE that leads to a seamless slight loading situation, and she continues to take out the mobs previously shown in the previous demo. Stun dart is used, flame thrower, and blaster fire. The next class we see is the Smuggler, and shows the basic combat and use of the stun grenade, and "Nut Kick" and "Head Shot" combo.

We then see the footage of the recently announced Sith Warrior class, doing some basic combat, footage previously seen at the GamesCom demo. They also have some fun jokingly showing the "Ultimate Evil Force" being "Darth Binks". We are then shown the flash point of The Black Talon ship. In this flash point, instead of the previously shown "Kill the captain" we get to see the "Spare the captain" side In this case, saving the captain reduces the amount of mobs you must kill, and slighty alters your story, adding lightside points. And we get to see the battle with a ship entering the bay, and dropping off troopers. Grab the lightsaber and equip it, showing a red and a purple saber. Then the big release CORUSCANT The world is beautiful And it looked as adding life to cities was a huge thing, with NPCs roaming and vehicles zooming around, the area we were shown was full of life. We then zoomed to the media room to post the Coruscant video, and then back to the cantina We then snagged an interview with the one, the only, the great Greg Zeschuk

A little break in the post to give thanks to Donna, for helping us with the CCP invite, much love and props to you And yes Dallas, we still have a firm belief that the dancing in Demo 2, was modeled off of you

Day three came about and as previously stated, we had been treated with even more interviews We posted our Dr. Z interview, learned quite a bit of him, and an overall interesting guy But we had to quickly make it over to our two hour wait in line for the Demo 2, that an inside source said be sure to show up Well, they were right We saw the same Bounty Hunter demo, but what was substituted in for the Smuggler, was the TROOPER Mr. Big Guns Switching to a larger weapon, we got to see the Trooper drop in and start laying some havoc on the local area, showing an array of abilities, from the Fire Bomb, to the Full Auto. And then, unfortunately, Tim died... And showed us the possible Death System. Overall, yet another bad ass display of what The Old Republic has to offer. It was then closed out with the second display of Coruscant, and once that was over we quickly scurried to the front for the interview with Tim and Jake I managed to score while at the CCP Party. Great interview with the people controlling what we had seen.

But day 3 had to end unfortunately, leaving me with a question... When can I expect to see TOR at another convention? Because it was a blast, the most fun I have had in years. And many thanks go out to BioWare and LucasArts for giving us their time for the interviews. All I can say as a final statement is, expect Darth Hater to be there next time, capturing all the exclusives and demos you have to offer