SWTOR-Station @ Gamescom 2009

 

20.08.09 - 11:50pm: Video Impressions of the Booth
Unfortunately the internet connection at the convention isn't the best, therefore we took our chance at the hotel to upload our video recording of the SWTOR booth. You can see the Community Cantina, Sean Dahlberg, the cue waiting in front of the demo cinema and our interview with R2D2. 

20.08.09 - 9:50am: The Sith Warrior Feeling
Before I describe how it felt to beat Republic Troopers and Jedi as a Sith Warrior yesterday, I want to use the opportunity to thank all the BioWare and EA guys here at the convention. Yesterday we talked to Sean Dahlberg, Daniel Erickson, Rich Vogel, Hergen Thaens (German Community Manager) and some more and all of them very incredibdly friendly and likeable. It's great that the developers devote so much time to their community and you just know that they enjoy what they are doing.

 

Picture: Amrac, Sean Dahlberg, Amonbell

Well, but now on to our exclusive Hands-On with Rich Vogel. We had the opportunity to play the complete E3 demo on board of the space ship of a renegade Imperial Captain. We were a Sith Warrior and were able to get an impression of this class. The Sith Warrior is a close combat fighter, who should try to get as close as possible to his foes by using his force leap. This ability works for quite a large distance in this version and also across different levels (for example, when jumping down from a higher place) perfectly and makes the Sith gameplay very quick. There are almost no downtimes and throughout the whole ten minutes there was almost no second in which we didn't fight. Therefore, The Old Republic makes you experience the fastet and most action-packed gameplay I've ever experienced in an MMO. The high quality and diverse animation suport this impression. The light saber fight is very dynamic and offers much more than a simple standard slash. For example, the Sith Warrior has an ability which allows you to spear an enemy, which causes a lot of damage and usually leads to the enemy's death.

To use these and further powerful attacks as for example the Darth Vader Force Choke, your Sith Warrior needs to have enough action points. Our level8 warrior gained these by using his two standard attacks. If you're fighting ong enough, the yellow bar fills up and you can use stronger attacks. Besides the already mentioned skills the Sith also causes areal damage. Therefore he leaps up into the air and crashed back onto the ground. This attack strongly reminded us of the trailer "Deceived" in which the Sith leader slams his opponent against a wall and then tries to lunge at him with his lightsaber from up above. In game you damage all opponents within a certain area with this ability. The Sith class also has a stun, which doesn't cause a lot of damage, but benumbs the enemy for a while. All in all the Sith Warrior is a Melee Damage-Dealer, who concentrates on causing lots of damage.

The demo showed BioWare's concept of feeling like a hero very clearly. We were always outnumbered by enemies when fighting, which made the force leap extraordinary effective to reach the next enemy after beating the first one. Another detail, which makes up a lot of atmosphere, is the environment's reaction to the player character. If you walk past the guards great you in a military way. Those little details make up the immersion and you feel more engaged than in many other MMOs. When talking about atmosphere we can't leave out the full-voice over, which makes the game even more immersive.

The version, which we played yesterday, was already a bit more advanced than the E3 version. There were some new hairstyles and details on the characters' faces. Our Sith Warrior - who was called "Vogel" by the way - had an impressive scar all over his face.

In addition, we took the chance to take a look at the user interface. The character screen has a display for dark and light site points. The decision to kill or spare the captaion earned us some points. Other parts of the interface aren't ready at this time of development yet.

We asked Richard Vogel, one of the studio managers at Austin, if the addendum "Warrior" mens that there might be two force sensitive Sith classes. His answer was a bit cautious, but it suggested to us that this isn't the case.

At the end of the demo we reached the hangar in which the Jedi Knight and his troops landed to enter our ship. The scripted event of the entering shuttle is a great prelude to the final fight. The Jedi is much tougher than the troopers, droids and padawans we battled beforehand. But we had the support of the Imperial battleships crew in our last fight. While our colleagues were shooting the Jedi we went in for close combat. Vogel made us become aware of the fact that the Jedi deflected most of the blaster shots with his lightsaber throughout the fight. Some more animations, which helps to create the Star Wars feeling!

Even though the Jedi Knight used some stuns and further special attacks, he was defeated by the Dark Side of the Force. As we looted his corpse we found a second lightsaber, which we equipped right away. The last trooper had to face both of our deadly swords and we managed to cause much more damage by doing so. Vogel also showed us that you can attach your saber to your belt and also draw it with a cool animation, so you don't run around carrying it all the time.

Still, there's little critique we need to mention. Since we had already seen the flashpoint (term for instances in SWTOR) at the demo cinema before and killed the captain there, we decided to go the other way down and spare him thistime. The differences were only very small in this instance though. You go a slightly different way to the hangar and fight a few other enemeies. You experience the flashpoint differently, but if you look at it in an objective way (which is hard to do as a fan ;-) ) the actual effect of our decision to kill or spare the captain is very little. Admittedly wedon't know which consequences might follow later on. We will try to find this out in our interview on Friday!

In the final analysis one can say: the game looks fantastic, the animations are floud and Star Warsy, the Sith Warrior abilities are lots of fun and The Old Republic offers a fast and dynamic gameplay for an MMO. The interface isn't finalized 100% yet and we still need to find out how crucial the consequences of our decisions really are. Amonbell and I had lots of fun while playing and the ten minutes appealed to us as if they had been two. Thank you, BioWare!

19.08.09 - 10:30 pm: The SWTOR Demo Cinema!
We were eagerly anticipating the opening of the doors at the Jedi Temple on Wednesday morning. Just a few other journalists had made their straight to the Star Wars: The Old Republic booth after gamescom in Cologne had started. At 10 started the first presentation and we experienced it live. Read more on our impressions here. The small cinema has a great atmosphere and the whole presentation was commented upon in English by a BioWare employee. Pictures were not allowed to be taken, sadly.

But before the demo started we were presented the well-known „Deceived“ Trailer in German. Well, we thought we would not experience anything new – but we were very impressed as we saw the lightshow accompanying it. Right at the first sequence when the space ship flies towards Corusscant the light changed accordingly, as the Sith attacked red lightsabers were glowing on the walls and as the spaceship crashed into the Jedi Temple, the seats were really vibrating. Goosebump-feeling for sure!

The following demo was played live, which means that it wasn’t simply a recorded video, but showed real-time gameplay. As expected we saw the E3 demo. At first the visitors were able to the Bounty Hunter on Hutta. And here comes the first highlight: Alien voice-overs! A companion of our mentor Braden is a member of an alien species and also had great voice-overs with subtitles. In the talk they also mentioned Geonosis, which makes it even more likely that this is going to be a playable planet.

As the character stepped out of the building into the city of Hutts, we were deeply impressed by the details: NPCs walking around everywhere, a city with rich atmosphere and flying animals in the air. This is where we saw battle in The Old Republic fort he first time as the Bounty Hunter shot some F’athra Gangsters, who were taking cover. Of course, he took upon quite a few of them at the same time.

But our Smuggler fans (*glances at Amrac*) also received a little treat. We were able to watch Smuggler Franz on Ord Mantell for a couple of minutes, who was also about to defeat some enemies. Green silhouettes flashed everywhere and our Han Solo mock quickly rolled there to take cover. Now we also know some more about his abilities. He’s able to throw flashbangs and – of course- we were also presented the kick in the nuts, which caused everyone to laugh.

It got really interesting after that: the Sith Warrior class was announced. Unfortunately we were unlucky and the demo of the dark side warrior didn’t work out in our presentation. We will try to see another one to keep up on this topic. We will see if he’s only one of two Sith classes or simply has a different name.

But there’s more to come, we also got to see the instance on the Black Tallon in which a Sith Warrior also plays a dominant role. At first sight we noticed that our dear Sith from the Developer Dispatch received some scars on his left eyes in between.

The audience was asked to decide on the captain’s fate live. Should he be killed or not? Actually we appeared to be in a session with lots of Sith-like journalists, because everyone wanted the Captain to be killed. That’s why everyone received a “I killed the Captain” button in the end.

The atmosphere inside the instance was awesome. The NPCs stumbled as the ship was attacked and greeted the characters when they walked past. Outside the ship we were able to see an awesome space fight through the windows.

On our way to the machine room we saw many action-packed battles of Sith and Bounty Hunter against several Troopers and a Jedi Padawan. Enemies were quickly approaching from all sides, so you really felt surrounded. As a boss the visitors of the demo cinema were able to see a Jedi Knight who deflected lots of blaster shots and attacks.

At the end of the demo it was promised to everyone again that Star Wars: The Old Republic would also feature typical MMO traits as PvP, auction houses, crafting etc. As a little highlight we were also presented a small snipped of the German and French voice-overs. The Sith Captain of Black Tallon sounds just as annoyed in the German version, so that we’re looking forward to a good translation as it seems.

The cinema is a necessity for every visitor! 


19.08.09 - 12:30 pm: A fantastic Hands-On!
As we announced before we just had the fantastic opportunity to play the demo of Star Wars: The Old Republic and talk to studio manager of BioWare Austin, Richard Vogel. Unfortunately we were no allowed to film anything, but we will do a detailed experience report in the course of this day. Friday we will also be able to do a video interview with the developers.

Most important fact first: playing the Star Wars: The Old Republic is incredibly fun already! We're really sorry to make you envious, but the ten minutes of playtime with the Sith warrior were finished way to fast and were also a completely different experience than watching the demo video.
 

The attack animations are already amazing and the game experience is incredible fast and action-packed. If you played other MMOs you will be able orientate within seconds. The interface is self-explanatory, although same parts of the interface aren't final yet. The dialogue system is just as intuitive and the voice overs are of the highest quality. We were already able to listen to some German and French voice overs in the public demo. These were just as fitting and of high quality.
 

There's only little critique, the difference between deciding to kill the captain of the Sith ship or sparing his life seems to be pretty small at first sight. You can read more about that in our detailed impression and observation review later today.


19.08.09 - 10:30 am: Getting started!
The doors had just opened and we made our way straight to Star Wars: The Old Republic in hal 6. As we arrived we did not only encounter some storm troopers, an R2D2 and Sean Dahlberg, but were also among the first who saw the official presentation of SWTOR. We also managed to make an appointment for a Hands-On today at 11:15am.

We hadn't expected that the days would start off that great. The BioWare and LucasArts booth in hall 6 is awesome, but the official presentation at the official cinema was even better. It's a fantastic experience to see the trailer in cinema quality, feel the shaking seats and experience the fantastic lightshow. Additionally we were also presented live gameplay, which was similar to the E3 one. A few new scenes are supposed to follow, we are going to see a Sith-Warrior (name of the Sith class) on Korriban.
 

We will update the website with our impressions and observations in detail soon. Now well hurry to reach the press area of the convention and experience the presentation behind closed door and hope to get some interesting information out of the developers.

We will try to get back to everyone here as soon as possible. If you want to know what we're doing simply watch our Twitter Page, which will be updated via SMS.