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12/30/09 2:42 AM -
Dissected: Designing the Dark Side Video 
by sado
, posted December 30th, 2009 at 2:42 AM
After a brief holiday vacation, our dissection of the Star Wars: The Old Republic 'Designing the Dark Side' video is now online. We unfortunately cannot credit anyone for the first finds as we did not create the usual thread on the forum for the dissection. We will continually add in new discoveries as we find them, so make sure to keep checking this post. Note: things we mentioned in prior dissections, we do not revisit again in this one. Dissection complete with our Orange Boxes after the jump.
 
The first of the images involves facial customization that we saw in our trip to LucasArts. It seems to confirm, at least on the player characters, that we will have similar customization options in the game.


Possibly the most interesting piece of the entire video was the reveal of armor sets that we will be using throughout the game. Not much is definitively known about these armor sets, but we speculated about this exact point and they seem to confirm what we theorized. The concept art of the armor sets mention classifications as med, heavy, and light.


We also saw tooltips of all of the skills used during the PvP portion of the video.


There were significant visual changes to the UI since game play was last seen in a video. Some of the changes were seen at our trip to LucasArts, and were mentioned in our prior articles.


Second of the UI images -


We hope you enjoyed our late ( ;) ) dissection of the video.
 
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76 Comments
Comment by Marcus made on February 17th, 2010 at 3:33am
@Jedi.grak If you're a level 40-50 character in Wow. You can still visit the Barrens, am I right? Other people here was speculating if they were going to hand out quests back where you started in level 1. That would be awesome. But again we dont know yet. ;)
 
Comment by Speculation: Getting to T made on January 28th, 2010 at 9:25pm
[...] level due to a few factors: the amount of class outfits shown for the Sith Warrior (58-60) and the level 50+ shown in the video, plus it was a widely-used and therefore [...]
 
Comment by chillinvillain made on January 3rd, 2010 at 11:32pm
on the last UI pic, i'm pretty sure the level is 43...
 
DH Team
Comment by emlaeh made on February 2nd, 2010 at 8:09pm
Take a look at the other article we posted about levels & Designing the Darkside.

Now I want to go through every single "similar" shot and see if the level number changes throughout the video.
 
Comment by korrick made on February 2nd, 2010 at 5:44pm
Yea I really stuided that number and by the glow of the number it is definatly level 43. I hope the cape is 50 because I dont want to see them copy WOWs level cap.
 
Comment by Altyrell made on January 4th, 2010 at 10:50am
It looks more like "40" to me
 
Comment by timskywalker made on January 19th, 2010 at 1:36am
indeed it looks mroe like 40
 
Comment by chillinvillain made on January 3rd, 2010 at 11:35pm
oh and forgot to comment, man did you see the shadows on the PvP vid? Even following the chick while in the air...I haven't seen that before in an MMO
 
Comment by Dissected: Designing the made on January 1st, 2010 at 7:32am
[...] It throws up some interesting new questions, answers age old ones Check it out [...]
 
Comment by RogueJedi86 made on January 1st, 2010 at 12:18am
In screenshot 4, I see Rawrrrrr is dual-wielding sabers. I was going to say that's new, but we saw that in the E3/GamesCon demo of the Sith Warrior.
 
Comment by Deidare made on January 1st, 2010 at 12:41am
Yeah, and at the beginning of the designing the darkside at scene 1:45 you can see another (sith warrior) duel wielding light sabers.
 
Comment by Lethality made on December 31st, 2009 at 10:00pm
I've noticed the UI is configured differently than in the previously released gameplay videos...

The experience bar is now flat along the bottom, and the black curved backdrop is gone.

But perhaps most interestingly is the black area to the far left bottom corner of the screen. At first it looks black and empty... but if you look closely, there are definitely UI elements/buttons hidden in there.

Check it out at about 4:05:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeZYGgcUDcY

Can anyone make any of that out?
 
DH Team
Comment by emlaeh made on January 1st, 2010 at 1:25am
There is an FPS counter on the lower left; it doesn't show in this screenshot.
 
Comment by Deidare made on January 1st, 2010 at 1:26am
Oh so thats what it is then, eh? Alright, thanks.
 
Comment by Deidare made on January 1st, 2010 at 12:42am
I'm not sure what it is put at scene 4:20 you have much clear image and you can see a button right above those numbers

Here check it out- (4:20)
http://www.youtube.com/user/emlaeh#p/a/f/0/YeZYGgcUDcY
 
Comment by jedi.grak made on December 31st, 2009 at 3:27pm
i think the sith inquisitor at the last picture is not lv 40 or 50 as ppl say. We all know that the sith inquisitor starts in korriban,as we can see that the inquisitor at the picture is at the valley of the dark lords which is in korriban , i think a higher lv sith inquisitor would have left korriban around lv 20 and gone to another planet where he can receive more quests. im almost sure that the first number is a 1 and the second is either a 0 or an 8.

i find it very unlikely that a higher lv character would go to newbie starting places but its possible, and it is also possible that there is higher lv quests in korriban but in my opnion the lv of the inquisitor is 10-18
 
DH Team
Comment by emlaeh made on January 1st, 2010 at 1:21am
It would be unwise for BioWare to have high level players completely "abandon" planets where new subscribers gather, or they'd have to develop an entire expansion just to fix that common MMO problem. ;)
 
Comment by Pinio made on December 31st, 2009 at 6:13pm
I hope that in TOR we'll can go around different planets freely and it's fit quite good to SI that she/he return to Korriban at higher level to make quest to become new empire leader (dark council member) :D
 
Comment by Deidare made on January 1st, 2010 at 12:38am
Agree Pinio, knowing BW I'm sure they might make some high level quests back on korriban, the pictures very vague, it really looks like level 40(something) or level 10(something) to be honest I really can't say which, but it certainly could be either.
 
Comment by Pangscar made on December 31st, 2009 at 1:12pm
Really liking the UI. Seems to get better every time we see it in one of these videos.
 
Comment by Corinthar made on December 31st, 2009 at 9:12am
As Mr Vader himself once said:

"Impressive! Most impressive"

Thanks again for the brilliant information. I just hope that your site, coupled with the SW:TOR official forums, can keep the hype charged prior to release.

Ah, while I'm at it Happy New Year to the staff and community members! :)
 
Comment by engrey made on December 31st, 2009 at 5:11pm
TOR General is full of fail, no logic and all "I KNOWZ HOW THE GAME WORKS LOOK ITS LIKE WOW AND MAGES AND !!ZOMG!!!!"

Yes, that would be great here...
 
Comment by Deidare made on January 1st, 2010 at 12:12am
Cool story bro
 
Comment by UAEROLL made on December 31st, 2009 at 4:11am
Thank you for your hard work DH. The last picture you posted i myself think its a level 50 when i watched the video but its unclear.
 
Comment by Xolis made on December 30th, 2009 at 9:23pm
Level in the last image looks like 10 to me. Especially considering the character is in "The Valley of the Dark Lords." That's on Korriban, right?
 
Comment by xsimonater made on December 30th, 2009 at 11:12pm
hmm it looks like in that last image is level 43. The area there in i dont think can realy lead to any conclusions atm as we have no idea which areas/planets are which level. and even on one planet, you are very likly (i hope) to have content for all levels.

also after looking at the video again, at 4min2sec you see the sith warrior using a force choke ability. and befor the channel had run its full duration the target which i believe was another player gets out of the choke ability. does this mean that with all the CC abilitys in the game there are other abilitys that can get you out of them? or does it mean that a diminishing returns system is in the game?
 
DH Team
Comment by emlaeh made on December 31st, 2009 at 12:22am
Maybe it is a combination of both! :D
 
Comment by RogueJedi86 made on December 30th, 2009 at 10:30pm
I agree, it looks like level 10. I figure we could probably visit low level areas anytime we want later on(level 80's in WoW can go back to Elwynn Forest), but that definitely looks like a level 10. Plus if it were a high level, wouldn't they be wearing headgear of some sort?
 
Comment by TheDarkKnight made on December 30th, 2009 at 5:08pm
So far I am happy with what I have been seeing in the videos and releases but I do have something that's a tad annoying. The environment interaction seems to need some more work. If you look at the recent video at around 1.17 all the NPCs and the player character seem to have mastered the art of levitation. IE the feet to not touch the ground and you can actually see the shadow cast by their boots. You also saw this in the Trooper video when you saw the NPC run right through a wall... up through the floor then died.

There is still time to get these bugs worked out.

:)
 
Comment by Macer made on December 30th, 2009 at 7:52pm
That's because that is a test sandbox to show you open pvp. I don't think its part of the game but I might be wrong. It looks like its been done to show a small glimpse, but I'm sure they having to work on the environment heavily on each planet, and new ones down into the future.
 
Comment by Macer made on December 30th, 2009 at 4:13pm
Pan the video to left BioWare... LEFT, NOT RIGHT! BH armor cards are crying out for me! *sniffles*
 
Comment by Macer made on December 30th, 2009 at 4:14pm
Oh, Sado, thanks for the close-ups. My eyes are socked with epic tears. :)

3 DH Team

-Macer
 
Comment by Jorus made on December 30th, 2009 at 2:44pm
Still seeing just the use of single names for player characters, it's worrying me a bit. I want a first and last name for my toons. All the ideas I have use two. :(
 
Comment by The BBP made on December 30th, 2009 at 1:19pm
Do we think that those armor sets will be available or that those were sets they passed through as ideas?
 
Comment by xyamax made on December 30th, 2009 at 11:15pm
If the "a07 c01" labels on the armor sets means Act 1 Chapter 7 as I'm assuming it does then I would think theres a good chance these armor sets will be in the game. It would be odd to give them a specific place in the game just to redesign them later.
 
Comment by Deidare made on December 30th, 2009 at 3:04pm
Probably both, I assume some would make it into the game, while others would be mere ideas.
 
Comment by Revix2k9 made on December 31st, 2009 at 1:28am
there was a qoute that everything you see as concept you would see ingame except for or maybe darth jar jar binks :P
 
Comment by Pinio made on December 31st, 2009 at 4:36am
Yes in vid "Making of Tython". This board of concept arts looks more like final set what Bio chose to put ingame, but they can change any of it anytime.
 
Comment by Pinio made on January 1st, 2010 at 8:41pm
Ahh. So then I sorry, because probably didn't read your post carefully enough. I see now, that I wrote exactly like you before me, so there was no reason to corrected you :D Misunderstandings make sometimes funny momemts.
 
Comment by Deidare made on January 1st, 2010 at 7:30pm
@-Pinio: Sorry if you thought I was referring to you Pinio, I only responded because I thought you were supporting Revix’s “idea”. But I was talking to Revix who said that EVERYTHING (except for poor darth Binks ;)) that’s concept gets put ingame, which isn't what BW was (or is) telling us. And because it’s called "concept" there’s a likelihood that it won't be put in game; because after all its concept, an idea.
 
Comment by Pinio made on January 1st, 2010 at 8:15am

So they always making ingame objects like that so in natural way all what we find in web is what we'll find in game.
 
Comment by Pinio made on January 1st, 2010 at 12:13am
@Deidare - IMHO that what you wrote is consequence of theirs designers method. I mean this senior world designer from video told that when they get concept art then literally build that. SO if we find something on web it pretty look like what we'll find in game :D
 
Comment by Deidare made on December 31st, 2009 at 11:50pm
Actually they say that the concept art on the web is what it looks like in game. They don't say that it will (though the chance is very likely if it’s on the website) they just say that’s what it basically will look like in game. Now this armor sets technically aren’t on the website, meaning that they might or might not be put in the game, however the armor that would be put in game will look exactly like its concept art.