All things in this post are things i read in the reviews and info released from bioware about SWTOR at E3. Most info comes from the 8 or so game sites that got to see the demo that we didn't see.

the smuggler has to be one step ahead of his opponents in combat, which is why we have implemented a "cover" system for the class. To succeed, the smuggler has to stun opponents, shoot from around corners, and, yes, shoot first. Awesome I love cover systems

The Old Republic is about choices, and if you want to spec your smuggler out to be a scruffy-looking nerfherder with a gun, a bad attitude, and a propensity to shoot first and ask questions later, that route is always there. Just don't expect that "flirt" line you just picked to work nearly as well. Could this mean skill trees or a list of skills you get to pick from a list like in mass effect. I think it is telling us you do get to pick skills.

when discussing gear, we affectionately refer to one of the high-end smuggler player-versus-player reward sets as the "Bling" outfit. That tells me confirmed PVP

The Jedi combat in The Old Republic is perhaps the most engaging combat I've seen in an MMO yet. Showing off moves directly translated from the recently released cinematic, the Sith jumped forward and backward, deflecting laser blasts and blocking melee attacks. Finishing moves and saber flourishes were carried off at a perfect pacing. This made me drool and poop my pants a little.

At one point the Sith force-choked the Jedi Knight, with the Bounty Hunter stepping up to use his flamethrower on the hovering victim. At the end, the Knight killed, the Sith looted him, took his lightsaber, and equipped it for a dual-saber build. Awesome Duel wielding light sabers woot.

fter the demo the BioWare folks explained that Star Wars: The Old Republic is being made with all the trimmings of an MMO. Full PvP, groups, raids, guilds, auctions, and crafting will play major parts in the game design and have players building up their resources to battle it out across the galaxy. More great news IMO

He also briefly mentioned an intriguing multiplayer conversation system, in which players in the same party will be able to take turns responding and initiating conversations with NPCs. It's a concept that could add a new dimension to MMOs, but Dickenson said that BioWare is still keeping details of the feature under wraps. Not to sure how I feel about this one I don't wanna watch my entire party's conversation with an npc.  Guess if it all plays out as one conversation and not 4 copies of the same conversation I'm okay with it.

Choices will also drive gamers to either the Light or Dark Side of the Force: "If you go totally Dark Side you will have some abilities that are available to you that aren't available to players in your same class who took a kindlier route," Dickenson said. Bad news for Neutral jedi/sith so Oskid said. But I still think that is totally awesome better evil powers the more to the dark side you are Totally cool.

his sequence finally gave us the opportunity to see real lightsaber combat in action. Given that the players we were watching were only 8th level, there was an awful lot of cinematic action on the screen. The Sith character charged into combat with an array of awesome leaps, swings and stabs. The sense of connection between the lightsaber and the enemies was very believable, and the animations for the blocks and strikes enhanced the sense of realism. pretty cool sounding combat.

But it's not just about the regular attacks. The Sith can use a range of Force powers, choking enemies or stunning them with lightning attacks. The bounty hunter can even jet up into the air and rain blaster fire down on his enemies from on high. a little more taste of combat

In general, the game resembles a mash-up of Knights of the Old Republic/Mass Effect and World of WarCraft. The storytelling and dialogue sequences use the same radial menu as in Mass Effect (though, don't expect that all responses in the upper-left to be noble/good ones and all lower-right responses to be asshole ones; the team will vary up the dialogue choice placement), while the combat generally utilizes the menu/hotkey system of an MMO title. Just the thought of someone that played it.

What's our take? I generally like what I saw and played. The Sith is a pretty fun class; I basically used enough basic attacks to build up enough points to perform a cooler move, like a Force Choke or some sort of force lightning stomp that stunned enemies in an area, or a simple "stab you in the stomach" type of move with the lightsaber. The combat feels a bit faster and more active than in WoW; a small review by one site.

A little more seems as thought The Bounty Hunter will start on the planet Hutta
and the smuggler with start on Ord Mandel.
 

All the articles can be found in this thread on the SwTor forums. enjoy.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=32161

And of course we got to See an amazing Cgi trailer and found out the entire game is voiced over. So to all those who were disappointed in E3 not showing us game play footage I hope this stuff makes you feel a little better I spent a few hours digging up all this info.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-star-wars/49937

Nice read.

Cant wait for some real gameplay videos of this.

Originally posted by segyn

 At the end, the Knight killed, the Sith looted him, took his lightsaber, and equipped it for a dual-saber build. Awesome Duel wielding light sabers woot

Fully implemented voice overs? Who F'n cares? 4th pillar story arcs? Who F'n cares?
 

PvP & player looting? This just made me much more interested in this game.

Sweet, I cant wait for this game.

I must admit, I wasnt too excited about this game, but after reading this, ill deffinately keep my eye on it. Great read, thanks for posting!

Originally posted by Murashu

Originally posted by segyn

 At the end, the Knight killed, the Sith looted him, took his lightsaber, and equipped it for a dual-saber build. Awesome Duel wielding light sabers woot

Fully implemented voice overs? Who F'n cares? 4th pillar story arcs? Who F'n cares?
 

 

PvP & player looting? This just made me much more interested in this game.

It indicates the Sith looted a jedi knight but does not indicate that the Jedi Knight was a player. I highly doubt that this is going to have player looting.

As far as the conversations with npc's I think what happens is that any encounter can have multiple outcomes. each player gets to "play" one dialogue contribution to the conversation and will most likely pick a dialogue choice where he/she has some sort of mastery (referencing the "flirt" comment).

So each player will see their party's choices as they play them. Then depending on each player's choices and whether or not they were successful, one of the many outcomes would occur.

That is my guess anyways.

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Murashu

Originally posted by segyn

 At the end, the Knight killed, the Sith looted him, took his lightsaber, and equipped it for a dual-saber build. Awesome Duel wielding light sabers woot

Fully implemented voice overs? Who F'n cares? 4th pillar story arcs? Who F'n cares?
 

 

PvP & player looting? This just made me much more interested in this game.

 

It indicates the Sith looted a jedi knight but does not indicate that the Jedi Knight was a player. I highly doubt that this is going to have player looting.

As far as the conversations with npc's I think what happens is that any encounter can have multiple outcomes. each player gets to "play" one dialogue contribution to the conversation and will most likely pick a dialogue choice where he/she has some sort of mastery (referencing the "flirt" comment).

So each player will see their party's choices as they play them. Then depending on each player's choices and whether or not they were successful, one of the many outcomes would occur.

That is my guess anyways.

I think I read somewhere that it was almost like a "voting" system when the group dialogue trees came up.  Now if there are only two peeps, not sure how it would work....

Why does this game have to be so far out??????

I THINK this game might have the only chance to MUSCLE WoW out of being the top MMO out there. I understand they all ready have ONE million pre sales all ready. I personally would love to see a Bioware vs Blizzard MMO battle.

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Murashu

Originally posted by segyn

 At the end, the Knight killed, the Sith looted him, took his lightsaber, and equipped it for a dual-saber build. Awesome Duel wielding light sabers woot

Fully implemented voice overs? Who F'n cares? 4th pillar story arcs? Who F'n cares?
 

 

PvP & player looting? This just made me much more interested in this game.

 

It indicates the Sith looted a jedi knight but does not indicate that the Jedi Knight was a player. I highly doubt that this is going to have player looting.

As far as the conversations with npc's I think what happens is that any encounter can have multiple outcomes. each player gets to "play" one dialogue contribution to the conversation and will most likely pick a dialogue choice where he/she has some sort of mastery (referencing the "flirt" comment).

So each player will see their party's choices as they play them. Then depending on each player's choices and whether or not they were successful, one of the many outcomes would occur.

That is my guess anyways.

Correct, the Jedi that was looted by the Sith Player was an NPC character, not another player. This little part of the demo was to showcase that loot drops are tailored to your class and  confirmed Dual Wielding of lightsabers.

Originally posted by Murashu

Originally posted by segyn

 At the end, the Knight killed, the Sith looted him, took his lightsaber, and equipped it for a dual-saber build. Awesome Duel wielding light sabers woot

Fully implemented voice overs? Who F'n cares? 4th pillar story arcs? Who F'n cares?
 

 

PvP & player looting? This just made me much more interested in this game.

I suspect you were being rhetorical, but in case you weren't - actually I F'n care... I think these are pretty interesting, and especially in the case of voice overs, unique additions to a mostly cookie-cutter MMO genre.  Bioware takes pride, above all else, in story-telling and immersion (see KotOR and Mass Effect...).  The fact that EVERY line of dialogue throughout the entire game will have voice-over is pretty immersive. 

I prefer my MMO's to be immersive rather than necessarily have hard-core (player looting) PvP.  I play FPS's for my taste of PvP.

Originally posted by Sovrath 

It indicates the Sith looted a jedi knight but does not indicate that the Jedi Knight was a player. I highly doubt that this is going to have player looting.

Dude! Don't pee all over my parade! I want this game to be awesome and this is the first time I saw something that I would consider awesome in this game lol. I'll put up with questing to advance and silly voice-overs that I can hopefully disable if they actually have a death penalty (player looting).

They are making the game for the WoW crowd though and we know how the WoW folks feel about death penalties so I'm sure it wont happen. It is fun to dream though.

Originally posted by jposavatz 

I suspect you were being rhetorical, but in case you weren't - actually I F'n care... I think these are pretty interesting, and especially in the case of voice overs, unique additions to a mostly cookie-cutter MMO genre.  Bioware takes pride, above all else, in story-telling and immersion (see KotOR and Mass Effect...).  The fact that EVERY line of dialogue throughout the entire game will have voice-over is pretty immersive. 

 

I prefer my MMO's to be immersive rather than necessarily have hard-core (player looting) PvP.  I play FPS's for my taste of PvP.

I know some people care but most MMOers admit to skipping thru quest dialogue and only read what the objectives are. I see nothing immersive about a game that has thousands of people completing the same quest for the same guy, killing the same bad guy in the same place in the same manner, day after day after day.

I play single-player RPG's for my taste of immersion.

Originally posted by Isturi

I THINK this game might have the only chance to MUSCLE WoW out of being the top MMO out there. I understand they all ready have ONE million pre sales all ready. I personally would love to see a Bioware vs Blizzard MMO battle.

What does it matter if it does or doesn't edge out WoW?  As long as it is a good game thats fun to play and they get and keep the subs to keep it live; then really does it matter?  I cannot understand the fixation some have on ousting WoW!?!   Played it in Beta and after launch... quit two years ago and am never going to play it againt...

IMHO 

Originally posted by Murashu

Originally posted by jposavatz 

I suspect you were being rhetorical, but in case you weren't - actually I F'n care... I think these are pretty interesting, and especially in the case of voice overs, unique additions to a mostly cookie-cutter MMO genre.  Bioware takes pride, above all else, in story-telling and immersion (see KotOR and Mass Effect...).  The fact that EVERY line of dialogue throughout the entire game will have voice-over is pretty immersive. 

 

I prefer my MMO's to be immersive rather than necessarily have hard-core (player looting) PvP.  I play FPS's for my taste of PvP.

I know some people care but most MMOers admit to skipping thru quest dialogue and only read what the objectives are. I see nothing immersive about a game that has thousands of people completing the same quest for the same guy, killing the same bad guy in the same place in the same manner, day after day after day.

 

I play single-player RPG's for my taste of immersion.

Very valid points.  For me it depends on the day... some days I just click-click-click through quests as quickly as possible to level up, whereas other days I want to feel like I'm actually there, in the world.  As for everybody doing the same quests... well so long as I'm not there to see them turning the quests in, then I can suspend that little bit of reality.

I suppose my desire to play MMO's with immersion goes back to my AD&D days.  You actually got to socialize with friends while playing as a different person in an alternate reality.  I've actually come to completely dislike single-player RPG's personally for that very reason.  They're so... lonely!

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, thanks to the OP for pulling this information together.  The thing that gets me the most excited (moreso than the voiceovers) is what's been written about the combat animations.  That just sounds really friggin cool... hopefully some randomness will be thrown in there as well (e.g. if I execute a particular "move", hopefully there are several different animations for that same move).  This would keep each battle visually fresh, and especially unpredictable (or at least more complex) from a PvP persctive (for those who prefer the PvP aspects).

Originally posted by Murashu

Originally posted by jposavatz 

I suspect you were being rhetorical, but in case you weren't - actually I F'n care... I think these are pretty interesting, and especially in the case of voice overs, unique additions to a mostly cookie-cutter MMO genre.  Bioware takes pride, above all else, in story-telling and immersion (see KotOR and Mass Effect...).  The fact that EVERY line of dialogue throughout the entire game will have voice-over is pretty immersive. 

 

I prefer my MMO's to be immersive rather than necessarily have hard-core (player looting) PvP.  I play FPS's for my taste of PvP.

I know some people care but most MMOers admit to skipping thru quest dialogue and only read what the objectives are. I see nothing immersive about a game that has thousands of people completing the same quest for the same guy, killing the same bad guy in the same place in the same manner, day after day after day.

 

I play single-player RPG's for my taste of immersion.

I think you both make some very good points which I agree with.  Immersion can be tough when everyone else aropund you is rushing through the content, but getting ganked and player looted by someone 20+ lvls above yours isn't much fun either.  If given enough content the lvl grind would be less tramatic and with some nice tweaking PvP is very fun and rewarding.  I wish they would have gone with a skills or ability system v. lvls.  Oh Well...time will flush out how this game will go,

all i saw was blue, couldn't make out if there was a message or not

I'm not even a star wars fan but the fact that all the quests are voiced over is great news to me. While you can probably click through it, I wouldn't and I would probably enjoy this game way more because of the voice over. Normally I'd rush click but this would get me more engaged in the story thus making me enjoy the experience all the more.

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Murashu

Originally posted by segyn

 At the end, the Knight killed, the Sith looted him, took his lightsaber, and equipped it for a dual-saber build. Awesome Duel wielding light sabers woot

Fully implemented voice overs? Who F'n cares? 4th pillar story arcs? Who F'n cares?
 

 

PvP & player looting? This just made me much more interested in this game.

 

It indicates the Sith looted a jedi knight but does not indicate that the Jedi Knight was a player. I highly doubt that this is going to have player looting.

As far as the conversations with npc's I think what happens is that any encounter can have multiple outcomes. each player gets to "play" one dialogue contribution to the conversation and will most likely pick a dialogue choice where he/she has some sort of mastery (referencing the "flirt" comment).

So each player will see their party's choices as they play them. Then depending on each player's choices and whether or not they were successful, one of the many outcomes would occur.

That is my guess anyways.

Yeah him looting the jedi knight was a boss fight not a pvp battle

We all learned that the CGI cut scenes are going to be awesome, unfortunately we learned very little else :(

Originally posted by segyn

At one point the Sith force-choked the Jedi Knight, with the Bounty Hunter stepping up to use his flamethrower on the hovering victim. At the end, the Knight killed, the Sith looted him, took his lightsaber, and equipped it for a dual-saber build. Awesome Duel wielding light sabers woot.

Yeah, you left out one thing. Go read the review that snippet came from again. You'll realize the reason there is only a Sith and a bounty hunter teamed is because only TWO people can be teamed at a time.

So at least you don't have to worry about reading 4 other players responses to the quests.

Yeah, a real MMO this game is.