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Star Wars The Old Republic is getting a big PAX East 2011 showing and the team at BioWare have created a new in-game trailer to show off even more of the highly anticipated MMO game. The trailer, titled Fate of the Galaxy, shows off a lot of in-game combat, hints at its story and shows off a number of the planets and locations in the game, all in a two minute time span.

There's still no word yet on when Star Wars The Old Republic will be released other than it's planned for launch in the second half of 2011. In the meantime players can get a head start by setting up their player guilds on the game's official web site.

Dark Horse Comics has already worked with BioWare on comic books based on the upcoming MMO Star Wars The Old Republic. The comics were first published on the game's official web site and later made available in print form by Dark Horse. This week the comic book publisher announced plans to release a all new mini-series based on the game that will begin this June.

Star Wars The Old Republic: The Lost Suns will be a five issue mini-series written by BioWare's senior creative writer, Alexander Freed with art provided by George Freeman and Dave Ross. The storyline will be based on events in the game and will focus on Theron Shan, a spy and son of a Jedi Knight, who has to find out the secrets behind the treaty between the Republic and the Empire while also dealing with a group of Sith Knights.

Star Wars The Old Republic isn't due for release until at least late 2011 but in an unusual move developer BioWare is letting fans go ahead and start the process of organizing their official player guilds for the highly anticipated MMO. The game's official web site has launched a page that allows players to either find a guild with members that would be a good match or start one of their own.

In the first phase of this process, player guilds are formed and can establish their own mini-site with public and private forms. The upcoming second phase will allow guilds to select other guilds to play with in the final game. Finally the third phase will have BioWare move the guild into the game servers. Also, guild creation and administration features will be moved into the game during that phase. So if you had your heart set on creating a Star Wars The Old Republic guild that has members that also love The Golden Girls, here's your chance.

The co-creator of the very first LucasArts adventure game, Maniac Mansion, would like to see the publisher do a remake much like it did recently with the two Monkey Island special editions. Eurogamer reports that speaking at GDC 2011 Ron Gilbert states, "I think that would be really neat."

If he were to be in charge of such a remake, Gilbert has though about "fixing" what he feels were flaws in the original 1987 game. However he added, "Isn't that a little bit like George Lucas going back and fixing all those problems with Star Wars? Maybe the game really needs to be what it is back then."

The original game, released back in 1987 for the Commordore 64 PC, has the gamer controlling a teenager that is trying to rescue his girlfriend from a mad scientist inside a dark mansion. The game was the precursor to all of the great LucasArts adventure games that followed. Gilbert himself is currently working with another former LucasArts adventure game designer, Tim Schafer, on an unannounced game at Double Fine.

With the possible exception of Darth Vader, the coolest villain in the Star Wars fictional universe was the ruthless bounty hunter Boba Fett. The upcoming MMO Star Wars The Old Republic will allow players to have their Vett fantasies fulfilled with the game's Bounty Hunter class. The game's official web site has posted up more info about this new player class and its two sub-classes, the heavily armored Boba Fett-type Powertech (shown above) or the heavily armed Mercenary.

In related news, folks who are planning to attend PAX East 2011 in Boston a week from today will get to actually play the BioWare-developed game. It will be the first time at a public event that players will be able to check out all eight announced player classes along with other gameplay events, live demos, Q&As and more.

Download the Star Wars The Old Republic Bounty Hunter trailer at Big Download

Star Wars The Old Republic takes place long before the events of the Star Wars movies. However the conflict between the Republic and the Sith Empire in the upcoming BioWare MMO started long before the game's setting as well. In the latest video that checks out the game's back story and timeline we learn more about this earlier conflict, The Great Hyperspace War.

The nearly six minute video shows how the Sith Empire was expanding into Republic space and how the leader of the Empire used an opportunity to lead his people into a full scale war with the Republic. The Sith was on the verge of winning the war when another factor entered into picture. That caused the tide to turn against the Sith Empire, forcing it to head finally into deep space. The full video gives all the details of The Great Hyperspace War and how those events affect the story in Star Wars The Old Republic.

Download The Star Wars The Old Republic "The Great Hyperspace War" Timeline Video at Big Download

Not city blocks, but LEGO blocks. This trailer for LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars is everything we expect from a launch trailer: cinematics interspersed with shots of the game while not actually giving away information on how it is played. However, it does show off the most important part of this game. The battlefield sections are the most intriguing to us, especially give the fusion of strategy and action mechanics. There's also plenty of shots of the characters from the TV show, although they never actually talk beyond simple vocalizations.

Download LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars Launch Trailer
Check out all LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars downloads

Electronic Arts execs have admitted that the long awaited MMO Star Wars The Old Republic has already generated "significant development costs" ahead of its planned launch sometime in 2011. During the publisher's regular quarterly financial conference call with analysts earlier today (you can listen to the repeat right here) EA's chief financial officer Scott Brown added that the game from developer BioWare can still be "substantially profitable" even with a base of just 500,000 subscribers.

Brown did admit, however, "Anything north of a million subscribers, it's a very profitable business." While he would not mention any specific financial numbers Brown decided to take a stab at game-based web sites and blogs for what he felt was poor reporting on the game's developments costs on their part. He stated, "Don't read gamer blogs as having any substance. They bring a chuckle, but they also bring a frustration for those that are being responsible with the management of EA's R&D dollars."

[Via Gamasutra]

We've been looking forward to playing Lego Star Wars III The Clone Wars but it looks like the latest game in the long running family friendly Star Wars game series is going to take a little longer to complete.

The game from developer Traveller's Tales and publisher LucasArts was supposed to be released last fall but the release date got pushed back to February 15. Now Gamershell reports that the game will be delayed a few more weeks to March 22. This new date has been confirmed as the GameStop and Amazon.com web sites that now reflect the new shipping date. No specific reason for the delay was announced.

[Via Blue's News]

Star Wars The Old Republic could be the most anticipated MMO launch of all time. So naturally lots of folks want to know when the game is going to launch. MCV, in an article that uses unnamed "development sources", claims it has learned that the BioWare-developed game will be launched in September 2011 worldwide.

This date has yet to be confirmed by BioWare or the game co-publishers Electronic Arts and LucasArts. Previously EA has said the target date for the game's launch was sometime this spring. However more recently the co-founder of BioWare, Ray Muzyka, has stated simply in recent interviews that the game will launch sometime in 2011.