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SWTOR News
3/19/10 10:10 AM -
Friday Update: Fan Friday & DevTracker Highlights 
by Zenkei
, posted March 19th, 2010 at 10:10 AM
This week's update is a Fan Friday. As Sean Sean Dahlberg said:

In this Fan Friday, we are highlighting various items from the Star Wars: The Old Republic community, dishing out exciting content from the Development Team, following up on GDC 2010, and confirming our presence at this years E3.

If you're looking for more opportunities to voice your opinion, you'll be interested in the new polls we posted up. Also, we added new avatars to the forums, so try them out.

The Developer Corner section includes is an amazing video of the Sith Inquisitor showing off some of his lightning abilities with booming sound effects.

Also included is some fan art by Hazaz and some by Daennika, some fan fiction by terminalpleasure, a Sith History Guide for Noobies by Danik_Kreldin, a few new pictures of customizable female faces, new avatars, new polls, and a wrap-up on GDC 2010.

In addition to Fan Friday, Daniel Erickson posted a few comments on the official forums this week. Details on his posts after the jump.
 
In response to a thread asking about what BioWare looks for in its writers, Daniel Erickson had the following to say:

Interesting thread. Important to note that the degree is not, in fact, mandatory but then you really need the work experience to even it out. Unless you're just mind bogglingly brilliant in your application module, of course. In fact one of our most accomplished senior writers is degreeless, choosing to go straight to work in the dreaded real world. As far as age, we run the gamut. We've got people right out of school and we have people with decades of experience. I care about two things: Can you write great interactive fiction and would you meld with my team. Having at various times been a producer and lead designer in my previous lives I have to say that finding the unique skills and creativity needed for BioWare writers has been the hardest hiring challenge of my career so the last thing we'd do is turn away some amazing talent because they weren't carrying the right piece of paper.

He also provided clarification on one of the species shown in a thread about the GDC session on facial animation in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Originally Posted by Sunyata
The last species could very well be an Abyssin.
Good guess!

He also hints at the depth of the Sith Empire in a thread about the Sith species.

Or maybe, just maybe, there's a great deal of the Empire yet to be seen.
 
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17 Comments
Comment by jeyhu made on March 22nd, 2010 at 8:03pm
Not too big on the Fan Friday stuff but since adding the Developer Corner it makes it a little more viable. I absolutely like what I see as far as the character customization seems to offer. I don't know why a bunch of folks hate the character models, I personally think the stylized look is very appealing compared to say WoW. Having scars and tattoos are great; I just hope I can create a Zabrak and make Sith Tattos :D.

Sith Inquistor looks pretty bad ass with all that lightning stuff. I'm not too big on the Tornado TBH, but that Lightning Blast knockback is absolutely awesome!! My friend from SWG who played a Jedi/Sith pre NGE would love that stuff!
 
Comment by Bzrk made on March 22nd, 2010 at 8:32am
Because Bioware does give us hints almost everywhere, I guess the new avatars also say something. When the Jawa avatars came out, almost everyone expected them to be some sort of companion, but I think they are (also?) NPC's. A while after that, Bioware gave us Tatooine as a planet.

Now, the new Avatars also give us clues. According to some people this (http://cdn-www.swtor.com/sites/all/files/avatars/avatar_creature_03.gif) is a Drall (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Drall_(species)) and this (http://cdn-www.swtor.com/sites/all/files/avatars/avatar_creature_04.gif) is a Selonian (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Selonian), which makes perfect sense. The Drall is from the planet of Drall in the Corellian system and the Selonian are from the planet Selonia, which resides also in the Corellia system.

Anyone can figure out where this is going? If there are any more planets to be revealed, Corellia may actually be a viable option. As will Geonosis by the way (also lots of Avatars from that planet to be found).
 
Comment by jeyhu made on March 22nd, 2010 at 8:00pm
I'm fully expecting Geonosis to be a planet reveal since they show Geonosisians as Avatars, and have mentioned it in the Time Line videos. Another thing, the gladiator area would be a perfect setting to have Arena based PvP as this has become very popular from what I hear in WoW. Now by no means should they make this the only pvp, but I would like to see a nice combo of Open RvR / Contested planets, Battlefield Instances and Arenas/Duels.
 
Comment by Korrick made on March 20th, 2010 at 4:01pm
"Or maybe, just maybe, there's a great deal of the Empire yet to be seen."

This got me excited, I have herd of the original Sith species but have never actually seen what they look like. I really hope they are a playable race or at least a NPC in the game.
 
Comment by Spiderman made on March 20th, 2010 at 12:36am
Love the sith inquisitor knockback
 
Comment by Tricky made on March 20th, 2010 at 12:25am
I found the female faces, hairstyles, ear & nose rings, makes-up, tattooing & scarring very amazing today. Can't wait to get in game & spend hours working on my 5 or so different characters.
 
Comment by chronium made on March 19th, 2010 at 11:24am
This is completely off topic and I don't know if this was talked about before but I think Mass Effect 2's planet scanning or maybe something similar to Mass Effect 1 might be in the game. If you go to the planet pages you will notice a flash animation of there specific star systems with all the planets in that specific system. Now that could easily just be showing you where the planet is in relation to the other planets but then there would be no need for them to show the moons. Yep there are moons little dots going super sonic speed orbiting the selected planet.
 
DH Team
Comment by emlaeh made on March 19th, 2010 at 11:21am
I saw that Sith Inquisitor video and now I can't get this out of my head:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajjavnNk5kk
 
Comment by Knibbler made on March 19th, 2010 at 11:21am
The Aruebesh at the bottom of the femal-faces shot says "Schematics," if anyone is interested.
 
DH Team
Comment by emlaeh made on March 19th, 2010 at 11:22am
That is the standard aurebesh they use on these types of screenshots. :)
 
Comment by RogueJedi86 made on March 19th, 2010 at 10:35am
I had hoped for a video of the gameplay at GDC, but I can dig this. I like some of those Inquisitor abilities(mainly the one that flings that enemy off-screen at high-speed), and the amount of customization for human females is deep so far. I can see TOR having a very detailed character create system.

edit
Also, TOR's first real appearance at a con will be at E? I had hoped maybe we'd get something at Pax East too. Then again, BW still showed up at GDC when it wouldn't be considered a major con either. I can hope BW will show up anyways, just because there's no reason not to go get some publicity for TOR any chance they can get.
 
Comment by Zenkei made on March 19th, 2010 at 10:38am
The "flinging of an enemy off-screen at high-speed" reminded me of when Mace Windu was thrown by Palpatine from his office with Force Lightning in Revenge of the Sith. The overall video, and especially the sounds, made me really want to play a Sith Inquisitor.
 
Comment by chronium made on March 19th, 2010 at 10:43am
I didn't like the tornado I'd rather they change it to something more like obiwan kenobi being held prisoner in attack of the clones but on his back instead of stomach.
 
Comment by PhoR11 made on March 19th, 2010 at 3:50pm
Or even just have the "stunned enemy" go down on one knee and continue pulsing with electricity.

Anything's got to be better than the swirling tornado animation.
 
DH Team
Comment by emlaeh made on March 20th, 2010 at 2:04pm
I'll disagree. I like an Inquisitor ability that is visually not lightning.

Breaks things up, and really noticeable.

I didn't see complaints about it when DD5 or the Holonet showed it... maybe I missed them.
 
Comment by Zenkei made on March 19th, 2010 at 10:57am
Yeah, I have to agree with you. It would look far better and seem like less of a mess. Though, instead of the Obi-wan Kenobi prisoner lightning, I would just prefer the current animation without the tornado dust.
 
Comment by Pangscar made on March 19th, 2010 at 12:55pm
yeah would rather see it as more of an electric cage type thing. Get rid of the dust and the guy swirling around, and have just the lightning swirling around and the enemy struggling against it like he's being crushed or held down.