star-wars-the-old-republic posts

Without a doubt the most anticipated MMO game launch in several years is Star Wars The Old Republic. BioWare's upcoming game has a lot to live up to and today a financial analyst says that the game could generate over 1 million subscribers in its first 12 months.

Gamasutra reports that Janco analyst Mike Hickey predicts that the game's sales will "far exceed" the 500,000 to 1 million sales mark but that the game's continued development "must be perfectly orchestrated" to keep its subscriber base from going down. Hickey predicts that at the 1 million subscriber level, Star Wars The Old Republic will bring in $161.9 million in revenues and $35 million in profits during its first year. The game is currently scheduled to be released during the second half of 2011.

Star Wars The Old Republic hasn't been released yet but BioWare's long awaited MMO is already the subject of two prose novels (Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance and Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived). Today the games official web site has announced a third novel is in works and it features a character from BioWare's original Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic single player RPG.

That character, which some of you have guess from the novel's cover art on the right, is Revan. One of the most popular characters from BioWare's first Star Wars game, author Drew Karpyshyn (who helped create the character) will show the Jedi Knight/Sith after the events of the first game and though and after the events of that game's sequel. While the novel will take place well before the events of The Old Republic MMO Karpyshyn says in an interview, " ... the events of this book have a major impact on shaping The Old Republic universe." Look for Star Wars The Old Republic Revan to be released later this year.

While last week's update on the Star Wars The Old Republic web site may have been an April Fool's joke, this week's update for the upcoming MMO is quite real and very detailed. Georg Zoeller, the Principal Lead Combat Designer for the game, gives out even more info about the advanced character classes in the game.

The update shows how the classes skill trees work to give the classes more abilities, with lots of examples. The blog update also shows how developer BioWare uses server metrics to evaluate how the advanced character classes work for players, including movement heat maps.

We pity any game developer or publisher who tried to release a real press release with a real announcement today. Here are just a few more of our favorite April Fool's themed news bits from all over the net:

• World of Warcraft is getting a helper, Crabby.
• That game is also getting a new ultra-dark dungeon.
• Brink developer Splash Damage gets into social gaming.
• Star Wars The Old Republic is being translated into the Wookie's language.
• Total War: Dinosaurs announced (actually we want this game to be real).
• Smash MNC (Monday Night Combat) gets a trailer (another game we want to play).
• Telltale Games reveals its Envelotech project.

When Star Wars Galaxies came out, the MMO made the huge mistake of making players work extremely hard to achieve the status of Jedi Knight. That won't be the case for BioWare's upcoming and long awaited MMO Star Wars The Old Republic. In the newest trailer released for the game, we get to see how the Jedi character progresses in the game via different types of armor.

But that's not important. What's important is that this pure gameplay clip shows lots of Jedi action with single and dual light sabers making short work of a Jedi's enemies. It doesn't get better than that.

Next week is a huge one for PC gamers as a bunch of major titles get their official release. Will your wallet survive?

• Did you know that at one time there was a Fallout movie planned by Interplay? We didn't either but there's a script treatment that's popped up online.
• A possible viral campaign for a possible Hitman 5 has apparently ended with the ending leading to a , yes, possible full reveal at E3.
• Trion Worlds is fighting off hacker attacks on its recently launched MMO Rift.
• Blizzard actually wants BioWare's upcoming MMO Star Wars The Old Republic to be a big hit.

Star Wars The Old Republic let players sign up to be considered for the beta test of the upcoming MMO game and so far close to 1.5 million players have done just that, according to what an Electronic Arts executive said in a recent meeting.

EA CFO Eric Brown told the audience this week at the Lazard Capital Markets Technology and Media Day that the high beta sign up numbers for the game are, " ... a great indicator in the interest level in the franchise." Gamasutra reports that Brown would not say when the open beta for the game would launch but did say that the game is not expected to be released before the end of June.

Star Wars The Old Republic has been promoted since the MMO was first announced as a story driven game. That's very evident in this latest in-game footage from developer BioWare's title. This very long (over 16 minutes) video is a full gameplay walkthrough of one of the game's Flashpoint missions.

This particular mission is designed for players of level 32 and requires four players to undertake. Narrated by BioWare's Dallas Dickinson, the video gives you a highly detailed look at how one of these Flashpoint story missions will be like before Star Wars The Old Republic is released late in 2011.

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.