*promote

Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Monday, June 6th, 2011 2:46pm PDT - promote requested by original submitter Hybrid.

Lucas must feel like a fking idiot every time one of these is released. Minimal dialogue, dynamic action and the audience knows what's going on in less than a minute. PLUS Tom Selleck! Why, if only someone made prequels this way!

holy damn! each cinematic just keeps getting better and better! I omg'd so many times on this new one. watching this made me more giddy than i'd care to admit.

when this launches its gonna be the end of my being a productive citizen

Wasn't there an article from an insider that said that this game was all Bluster and no content of any merit? I'm not saying it's true I'm just hoping someone can find it for me...thanks!

Spoooge!

Well done @CrushBug.

Well done.

What the hell... this was better than 90% of the prequel content. All four protagonists (two jedi's, captain, and stormtrooper) are already more likeable than Anakin and Padme. We got to see a storm trooper actually doing cool stuff. The smuggler was clearly a Han Solo rip off, but still. It's such a great universe, why do you have to run it in to the ground George Lucas.

Unfortunately, the actual gameplay footage I've seen looks pretty pedestrian.

This is one of those games where I'm more interested in the Cut-Scenes than the actual gameplay.

For any of you who have seen the prequels but haven't played Knights of the Old Republic, you are doing it so very wrong.

Go buy it for $10 on Steam; it's not a trap.

Statement from a friend, on his Facebook Status: Just saw the opening cinematic for Star Wars: The Old Republic. I need a cigarette.

Both Knights of the Old Republic games were such awesome awesome games...

But the last Star Wars Galaxies MMO was horrendously craptastic and buggy.

I'm conflicted.... can this be as good as it looks?

neat.

>> ^rychan:

What the hell... this was better than 90% of the prequel content. All four protagonists (two jedi's, captain, and stormtrooper) are already more likeable than Anakin and Padme. We got to see a storm trooper actually doing cool stuff. The smuggler was clearly a Han Solo rip off, but still. It's such a great universe, why do you have to run it in to the ground George Lucas.
Unfortunately, the actual gameplay footage I've seen looks pretty pedestrian.


A guy stabbing me in my eyes is more likeable than Anakin and Padme. Portman is a very good actress, but she can't make Lucas's scripts sound any good.

It isn't just Han Solo that's being ripped off. The whole time I was watching it seemed like they were putting old ideas in new clothes and changing the order around.

Smuggler guy who cares about money, helps the Jedi, and happens to have the fastest ship - Han Solo
The Sith ship that landed in the docking back looked an awful lot like the Millenium Falcon
Man the guns while I get the hyper-drive ready - escaping the Death Star in Episode IV
Tiny bit of Empire while they dodged some asteroids
The Jedi apprentice's master is killed and now she must carry on the fight against the Sith(I, IV, VI)
Flying through the Sith ship looked an awful lot like going into the Death Star in Episode VI

I understand the necessity of continuity in this universe they've created. A lot of its not only necessary, but fun. Still, they need more new ideas. The trooper being a character that gets developed may be the only new one. Also, the Jedi chick left her lightsaber with her master so that's probably a starting point for the game - you get to play as a Jedi, but you don't get a lightsaber for a while.

Still, this video did look freakin' awesome!
>> ^rychan:

What the hell... this was better than 90% of the prequel content. All four protagonists (two jedi's, captain, and stormtrooper) are already more likeable than Anakin and Padme. We got to see a storm trooper actually doing cool stuff. The smuggler was clearly a Han Solo rip off, but still. It's such a great universe, why do you have to run it in to the ground George Lucas.
Unfortunately, the actual gameplay footage I've seen looks pretty pedestrian.

Cinematics are really good for this game, too bad none of the gameplay videos are even remotely interesting.

Great intro... to what seems like a pretty meh game based on all the information so far. The fact you gotta buy it via EAs own store isnt going to help them much. Poor Bioware, from Boba to Jaja in 1 year.

People! Pre-rendered cinematics ≠ gameplay. This is the oldest rule in the book.

The gameplay itself may finally turn out to be good, but NEVER use a pretty intro video as your basis for quality predictions. EVER. These things are advertisments!

A Stunningly good looking cinematic. Well written, directed rendered and animated.
Still, the "magic" of Star Wars for me went with Episode I and it's never returned. Played Knights of the old republic but felt there was too much running around doing nothing..

In terms of great gameplay I still reckon Tie Fighter is right up there. Been playing it recently via dropbox and almost any other game that old, it still holds up really well.

"Pre-rendered cinematics ≠ gameplay" Agree 100%

But wish it wasn't true. Then this game would be rather good.

I felt a lot of the same as @Morganth watching this video. The story is supposedly set 3500 years before the events of the original movies, yet everything looks almost exactly the same. I will admit that I know very little Star Wars lore, but were the culture of the Old Republic really that similar? Among the things that looked almost exactly alike in this video were

-Stormtroopers
-Star Destroyers
-Tie Fighters
-smuggler ships
-door control panels

When I think of the Old Republic I want something old-fashioned and exotic, not the same stuff that I've seen hundreds of times before.

>> ^raverman:

Both Knights of the Old Republic games were such awesome awesome games...
But the last Star Wars Galaxies MMO was horrendously craptastic and buggy.
I'm conflicted.... can this be as good as it looks?


the last star wars mmo (SWG) was awesome for its first two years or so. then sony online entertainment (the developers) decided to remake the game entirely in the middle of it and made it the shitty game it is now. SWTOR is being produced and developed by bioware, their reputation speaks for itself

>> ^smooman:

>> ^raverman:
Both Knights of the Old Republic games were such awesome awesome games...
But the last Star Wars Galaxies MMO was horrendously craptastic and buggy.
I'm conflicted.... can this be as good as it looks?

the last star wars mmo (SWG) was awesome for its first two years or so. then sony online entertainment (the developers) decided to remake the game entirely in the middle of it and made it the shitty game it is now. SWTOR is being produced and developed by bioware, their reputation speaks for itself


Actually, If I remember right, SOE bought the rights from the original developers, and after that made the changes. That's why it went in such a decline. They decided things like everybody can be a Jedi, and dumbed them down a bit. On paper it wass a good idea, but in reality one of the coolest things that game had to offer was getting to a certain point and becoming "Force Sensative" allowing your character to become a Jedi. Sure they were a tad OP but that's because they only had one life, and once the jedi was dead, it was dead, so you got really attached to your character.

As for the original question, as long as a game company like SOE doesn't take over, and Bioware stays in charge, I trust them.

>> ^Shepppard:

>> ^smooman:
>> ^raverman:
Both Knights of the Old Republic games were such awesome awesome games...
But the last Star Wars Galaxies MMO was horrendously craptastic and buggy.
I'm conflicted.... can this be as good as it looks?

the last star wars mmo (SWG) was awesome for its first two years or so. then sony online entertainment (the developers) decided to remake the game entirely in the middle of it and made it the shitty game it is now. SWTOR is being produced and developed by bioware, their reputation speaks for itself

Actually, If I remember right, SOE bought the rights from the original developers, and after that made the changes. That's why it went in such a decline. They decided things like everybody can be a Jedi, and dumbed them down a bit. On paper it wass a good idea, but in reality one of the coolest things that game had to offer was getting to a certain point and becoming "Force Sensative" allowing your character to become a Jedi. Sure they were a tad OP but that's because they only had one life, and once the jedi was dead, it was dead, so you got really attached to your character.
As for the original question, as long as a game company like SOE doesn't take over, and Bioware stays in charge, I trust them.


nah, soe were the only developers. the differences between the game pre new game enhancement (NGE patch) and post nge were night and day. When swg launched and until the CU patch in 2005 it was the fastest growing mmo on the market. the cu saw a bit a decline but the final nail in the coffin was the nge and the shitstorm surrounding it. you had a unique and versatile profession based system where you could mix and match skills from 32 professions to make your "class". This was changed literally overnight with the nge, wiping the old profession system for a traditional class based system. many professions of the old game were not even represented in the new class system until about a year after the nge, namely the creature handler profession, one of the most fun and rewarding.

further adding to the controversy you had the trials of obi wan expansion that was released just two days prior to the nge, which, after the nge hit, a large portion of the player base demanded a refund on the expansion (which sony gave them eventually).

to sum it up, smedley, the president of soe, basically told the players what they want, despite massive protests that we didnt want any of that shit. today you have the ghost town of a game that swg sadly is.

i started playing shortly after launch and played through about 6 months or so after the nge. it was an amazing and unique game starting out but is garbage now. soe's lesson learned: dont fix what isnt broken


ps: permadeath was three deaths not one and that didnt last very long. after that it was xp loss. and jedi were op (pre nge anyway) primarily because of lore continuity and for the more practical reason: it took almost a year to grind one out in both the hologrind and the village grind (took me about 10 months playing everyday to unlock mine via the village grind)

in retrospect, any mmo that installs an alpha class (jedi for swg) its bound to break the game eventually but really, if you think about it, it only really breaks pvp

Ok, yes that was bad ass. but I really hate to say it. Everything in the video is something already seen in a star wars film.

Dude with a red face fighting with a light saber staff thing.

Droids with duel blasters.

Chase through an asteroid field.

Fast ugly tough cargo ship owned by a smuggler with gun ports on top and bottom. (They just need to name it the Aluminum falcon)

Big triangle shaped ships.

Mentor Jedi dieing while rookie lives.

Flying through some kind of structure.

The disturbance in the force pause and sad face.

Storm/clone troopers.

Smuggler saves the day. But, I will admit this one makes Han Look like a whiny little girl.

An R2D2 wannabe

and the escape in to hyperspace.

And apparently I'm not the only one to see this as several people already pointed it out.....
Whats truly sad is I don't have a computer that will run the game. So, I'll have to miss this one.

>> ^Ornthoron:

I felt a lot of the same as @<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/Morganth" title="member since March 25th, 2008" class="profilelink">Morganth watching this video. The story is supposedly set 3500 years before the events of the original movies, yet everything looks almost exactly the same. I will admit that I know very little Star Wars lore, but were the culture of the Old Republic really that similar? Among the things that looked almost exactly alike in this video were
-Stormtroopers
-Star Destroyers
-Tie Fighters
-smuggler ships
-door control panels
When I think of the Old Republic I want something old-fashioned and exotic, not the same stuff that I've seen hundreds of times before.


Yep, basically all content is ancesteral to Ep 4/5/6. Same schtick Lucas did with Ep 1, 2 and 3.

The thing that bothers me is that they keep trotting the exact same scenarios out.

-cocky smuggler a carbon copy of Han, check
-standard "enemy can't hit for shit" when a main character is striding in to combat with them
-freighter is 'fastest in sector' and 'looks like junk'
-ppl in the gun turrets ala New Hope
-Asteroid chase ala Empire
-Flying up the belly of a SD ala Jedi
-Flying through superstructure ala New Hope/Jedi

as if it's something new and fresh... The characters in this are infinitely more likeable than Ep 1/2/3 (although the smuggler character just annoys me) but the whole thing is so damn derivative it's like they're going down a checklist of homages they have to hit... I didn't hear a Wilhelm but I'm guesssing there's probably one of those in there somewhere as well.

I'm honestly surprised the hyperdrive didn't conk out and the smuggler started up "It's not my fault!"

I've seen this 20 years ago...

Nice CG but I don't like the saber fights or force powers. Every since Ep 1 the saber fights have been a flurry of flashing lights, cool leaps and overpowered force powers where guys can throw around objects weighting many tuns as if they were throwing a toy.

I mean am I the only one who thought the old battles were better. The sword play was slower and more deliberate (and more realistic). The fights were battles of will as well as sabers. Throwing an object around took serious concentration and it was a rather cumbersome ability in the first place. Only the most powerful of jedi and sith had abilities like force lightning or the ability to throw around objects. It's almost as bad as that last superman movie with the superman who could live a continent made of kryptonite out of the ocean lol.

Ok rant over hehe. Cool CG, to bad the actual gameplay and saber duels look 'nothing' like that.

@Xaielao

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're the only one who thinks the old battles were better. The old battles were slow.. and that MADE them unrealistic.

In a typical swordfight, I'm pretty sure you're not gonna hit 3 times in 5 seconds and stop. And I can probably back the rest of that up with Lore.

Despite being "The Chosen One", Luke was only trained when he was older. Yoda came close to showing off a jedi's true potential by lifting the X-wing out of the marsh, but at that point he was old, and likely hadn't used the force for ages before Luke had appeared.

The Jedi we see in the prequel trilogy had been raised since they were insanely young (Younger then the 9 year old Anakin, because someone even says "He's too old.") and whenever you see someone fighting they're not just a run-of-the-mill jedi, it's typically someone from the council, essentially, the cream of the crop.

And.. just on a last little rant about the swordplay.. they're Jedi. Again, people trained since they were extremely young to use the force as a guide. Qui gon Jin at one point even says something about "He can see glimpses of the future, it's a jedi trait." which again, is something that happens in battle making the fights faster and more epic. Jedi are essentially a partial ripoff of samurai anyway.. and if you don't think sword fighting can be that fast and action packed, watch a couple good Kendo matches.

Yes the old fights were better..

>> ^Shepppard:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/Xaielao" title="member since March 13th, 2009" class="profilelink">Xaielao
Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're the only one who thinks the old battles were better. The old battles were slow.. and that MADE them unrealistic.
In a typical swordfight, I'm pretty sure you're not gonna hit 3 times in 5 seconds and stop. And I can probably back the rest of that up with Lore.
Despite being "The Chosen One", Luke was only trained when he was older. Yoda came close to showing off a jedi's true potential by lifting the X-wing out of the marsh, but at that point he was old, and likely hadn't used the force for ages since Luke had appeared.
The Jedi we see in the prequel trilogy had been raised since they were insanely young (Younger then the 9 year old Anakin, because someone even says "He's too old.") and whenever you see someone fighting they're not just a run-of-the-mill jedi, it's typically someone from the council, essentially, the cream of the crop.
And.. just on a last little rant about the swordplay.. they're Jedi. Again, people trained since they were extremely young to use the force as a guide. Qui gon Jin at one point even says something about "He can see glimpses of the future, it's a jedi trait." which again, is something that happens in battle making the fights faster and more epic. Jedi are essentially a partial ripoff of samurai anyway.. and if you don't think sword fighting can be that fast and action packed, watch a couple good Kendo matches.



I may be the only one (though I sometimes doubt that hehe, but I must disagree about the saber battles in the original. They were choreographed by Bob Anderson, one of the greatest holywood sword trainers ever. The guy is behind literally every major action movie with sword fighting in them from Star Wars to The Lord of the Rings, and Pirates of the Caribbean to Highlander. The saber fights are slow I'll give you that, but they were slow for a reason. As I said they were choreographed in such a way that you could almost feel the battle of wills behind the sabers themselves.

If you ask me, I don't think light saber battles look anything like kendo. Sure they're fast, but Olympic fencing is even faster.

That's one thing I've always wondered though: do light sabers (the "light" or blade part anyway) have any weight? Because they always use moves that incorporate the momentum of the blade. To me, light saber battles in the new movies look more like wushu than anything else. I used to have a book with a chapter about how Bob Anderson and Peter Diamond choreographed the fights for the original Star Wars movies but I can't find it now. Anyway, they based the styles off of older fencing styles. You can see that when you watch the movies how Luke's "Ready position" is with his feet well apart and his light saber off to the side, whereas Darth Vader has a more upright Kendo position with his blade always in front. But they also chose those styles because they looked good on camera, and they changed them further still so that they had a "wow" factor.

Either way, I think the fencing would look completely different if they were really using blades that only had mass in the handle. They would be able to change course instantly, making for a lot of very tricky (not to mention insanely fast) moves. But it would still probably look closer to European fencing. And the actors in the movies need something (which in Star Wars props I believe is a carbon fiber rod) that they can swing around and bang on another person's sword creating the illusion that the light sabers in the final product are actually touching. If they represented it accurately though (which no movie ever does) then a person who new nothing about fencing would probably have a very hard time seeing what was actually going on. And there would probably be a lot more missing hands and fingers like Luke's in Empire. The actual techniques of any fighting style usually need some sort of introduction before anyone can really tell what's going on though.

That said, I can see Xaieleo's point about how the older movies seem more realistic. Although I think "more determined" is a much more accurate way of describing them than "slower". So I can see your point as well Sheppp. As time goes on, everyone has just gotten used to the Chinese "fling your blade around like crazy style" that is taught in wushu, which is really more of an exercise anyway but looks WAY cooler on camera than most "realistic" combat moves.

And another thing...
The Darth Maul dual-ended staff thing has always bugged me. I can't think of any reason that one double-sided staff like that would ever be more effective than just using a light saber in each hand. It would be much more adaptable and the dual-staff thing just seems way too dangerous to the wielder.

One thing that I would love to have seen instead of the "dual-staff-thing", which I think is a cop out, are new types of light sabers, like Count Dooku's french-handled light saber. I would have loved a little more creativity. I don't get paid to come up with new ideas but I'm sure if I spent a little time, I could come up with a variation that was more impressive than just: "LOOK! This guy uses TWO light sabers glued together!!11!" I don't know, maybe a light-saber-parrying implement or something. I for one was not impressed.

There, I said it. Now you know what kind of things I think about when I'm sitting at home alone and the internet goes out.

@Ryjkyj

Yeah, that's a decent enough argument.

However, as for the double bladed light saber, I think the functionality falls into a more impractical use then for straight fighting.

...god, I just thought of what I'm going to say and i'm gonna just have to turn my /nerd on for this one.

But if you think of the moves that gamers are used to Jedi having in their arsenal, but most movie watchers alone wouldn't think of, is the Saber Throw.

You have a single saber coming towards you, sure, it's probably tough. But you have a light saber coming at you with the "blade" on both ends, and that seems like it would inflict far more damage.

Knights of the Old Republic was epic... just a fantastic experience. It remains in my all-time top 10 list.

It's hard to believe this game is being made by the same company. It looks like a very thinly-veiled WoW ripoff, and not even a very pretty one at that (sorry, but the cartoony graphics have looked like shit from the beginning). Where's the innovation, BioWare?

>> ^Xax:

Knights of the Old Republic was epic... just a fantastic experience. It remains in my all-time top 10 list.
It's hard to believe this game is being made by the same company. It looks like a very thinly-veiled WoW ripoff, and not even a very pretty one at that (sorry, but the cartoony graphics have looked like shit from the beginning). Where's the innovation, BioWare?


... a fully voiced MMo with a potentially (and being as it's Bioware, I'm more prone to say likey) epic storyline that varies from class to class...

Pretty sure that's innovative.

>> ^Shepppard:
... a fully voiced MMo with a potentially (and being as it's Bioware, I'd say I'm more prone to say likey) epic storyline that varies from class to class...
Pretty sure that's innovative.


I'm pretty sure that hiring more people to speak the lines isn't innovative in the least. It's cool for sure. We'll see how the epic personal storyline part turns out. As far as the actual gameplay, I haven't seen anything impressive or new or interesting.

I'm much more interested in Guild Wars 2... if you want to see innovation in MMOs, that's where it's at.

>> ^Xax:

>> ^Shepppard:
... a fully voiced MMo with a potentially (and being as it's Bioware, I'd say I'm more prone to say likey) epic storyline that varies from class to class...
Pretty sure that's innovative.

I'm pretty sure that hiring more people to speak the lines isn't innovative in the least. It's cool for sure. We'll see how the epic personal storyline part turns out. As far as the actual gameplay, I haven't seen anything impressive or new or interesting.
I'm much more interested in Guild Wars 2... if you want to see innovation in MMOs, that's where it's at.


They've brought the radial chat wheel to an MMo, and added in the option to have multiple people in a storyline conversation.

I'm interested as to how that'll work, because I like being the good guy and the friend I generally play games with tends to be a dick. So I'm curious as to how the good-cop bad-cop thing is going to play out. However, I think you're dismissing a fully voiced MMo a little too hastily. Adding voices into a game adds in a completely new level of depth, instead of just skipping through quest text you actually progress and converse with the world around you.

I'm curious as to what you see in GW2 as innovative, as far as I can tell the only semi new thing is dynamic combat, and dynamic quests to a point. The ability to dodge attacks or hide behind a shield is interesting, but I'm not commenting more until I've seen balancing addressed. Age of Conan already partially touched on that with its shielding and dodging mechanics (you get 3 shields and 3 places to put them, front, and sides. The more shields per side, the less damage you take when hit from there, but it opens up a weakness on an unshielded side. And sidestepping gave buffs towards attacking or defending depending on which way you went.)

Dynamic quests as it was described to me sounds like Besieged from FFXI, Open Quests from WAR, and Rifts.. from Rift. You're sitting in town, or out in a forest. Suddenly, the enemy is upon us and there's a call to arms. You spend the next however many minutes slaughtering mobs and trying to save NPCs. If there's more types of quests then that, that's a horse of a different colour, but if that's it then that's also not innovative.

Not having traditional "Tank" or "Healer" roles is also going to be in SW:TOR, and is in FFXIV to a point.

And although FFXI has covered this, too, the party system in SW:TOR (with NPC's, not players) means that you never have to actively look for a party, you'll be able to have one of your own to continue to tackle content.

The way it goes now is basically, there IS next to no room for innovation, most of the stuff has been tried, and unless it's in WoW then it's likely flopped. The game that realized this and embraced that is Rift, which seemingly took the "best of" a lot of MMo's out there and refined it into their own.

So don't take this post the wrong way, I'm actively looking for your input on the subject, but why do you feel Guild Wars 2 is innovative?

They have got to stop using that Duel of the Fates track for every single Star Wars related video.