After seventeen years at the helm of the company they founded, founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk announced their retirement from BioWare today.
“This has been an incredibly difficult decision to make,” Muzyka said in his blog post; “after thinking about it for many months, I made the decision to retire from videogames back in early April 2012 – at that time I provided six months’ notice to EA, to help enable a solid transition for my teams at BioWare.”
With the Dark Knight being released this week. Our heroes and heroine RISE to the occasion. Today we discuss the much anticipated finale to the Nolan franchise.
Then it’s onwards to space with the not-so-final ending of Mass Effect 3. We hit up the topic of artistic integrity and whether or not the fans should be able to decide. We even bring up Neon Genesis Evangelion while were at it.
Bioware’s best-known for role-playing titles in fantastic settings: long ago in a galaxy far away, the future Milky Way, the gritty medieval world of Thedas. It makes our first look at their newest project to be announced at the 2011 Video Game Awards show on December 10th even more unusual.
The first image has surfaced, courtesy of GameInformer.
Finally, after months of waiting with baited breath, BioWare and LucasArts have decided to keep us is the dark no longer. According to the official Star Wars: The Old Republic news site, this highly-anticipated MMORPG (not to mention potential WoW-killer) will be released on December 20 in North America, and the 22nd in Europe.
I’m pretty excited about this for two reasons. First, it’s sure to be a phenomenal game. But second, it means the release date rumor we heard from a BioWare rep all the way back at PAX East turned out to be entirely true. And who doesn’t love being right?
If you’ve been following the site for the past few days, you have probably noticed all of the SW: TOR content that we discovered at PAX East. I wanted to give you some quick first impressions of the game. In short, the game has resurrected my interest in MMOs. I know for sure I will purchase this game upon release (whenever that may be, BioWare) and sink many otherwise unproductive hours into it. The controls are standard MMO fare with absolutely no surprises. The graphics are what you would expect from BioWare: realistic facial expressions, sharply intriguing camera angles, and fully developed worlds and environments. What is going to set this MMO apart, however, is the story-driven landscape. Naturally, it is at its heart a BioWare game set in the Star Wars universe; even though a community rep admitted that it is an MMO first, SW: TOR will feature an intricately woven plot into intense MMO gameplay. One unique feature displayed (and unfortunately during a tutorial screen and thus, un-filmed) involved how BioWare reconciled its phenomenal role-playing features with that of the combat-driven MMO. When raid members are asked questions by NPCs, they are given choices (the good ol’ response wheel), and dice are rolled to determine who gets to speak when. It rolled smoothly and added multiple characters’ opinions and attitudes toward story features and events. While maintaining classic MMO tendencies, BioWare concentrates heavily on the “RPG” half of the game-changing genre. Read on to catch an official release date from a rep from BioWare Austin.
Saturday morning at PAX East, those involved with the media (and cleared for access) were allowed a one-hour preview of the show floor before opening to all others at 11 AM. I had two objectives: 1) get in line for SW: TOR and 2) play SW: TOR. After waiting in line for nearly an hour (and the previously mentioned incident occurred), I was ushered into the gameplay area with the other members of the press. We sat in a briefing room and received a tutorial and preview of our mission and gameplay options. We were divided into teams of four (a Tank, an AOE expert, a Healer, and a secondary Tank) and placed into a level 32 instance. The team from BioWare wanted us to experience the game at a higher level so we could learn and understand more powers and sophistications of the game. I assigned myself to the Tank and leapt into a world a really, REALLY long time ago. Read on to see the video and footage of the gameplay and a brief review.
Hello faithful readers. Earlier today, we tried to livestream our team’s play footage of Star Wars: The Old Republic from BioWare. We had lined up at 9 AM with the rest of the media. We were allowed over-the-shoulder footage of the live demo (which I played, which was PHEnomenal). While in line — and this is the honest truth — a community rep was discussing the future of the game and dropped the words, “fourth quarter, twenty-eleven.” This was the source of the release date bomb that occurred earlier from our humble site. Now maybe the rep just likes those three numbers and the American monetary denomination for twenty-rive cents. Pay no attention to it if you wish (after all it is only hearsay), but I assure you, these words were both heard and said. In a follow-up interview I did on the fly with one of the higher-ups, he recited those glorious corporate words, “BioWare will release the game when it’s ready.” So. There you have it.
![[PAX East 2011] Star Wars: The Old Republic – Live Streaming Preview [Update]](http://pixelatedgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/old_repbublic.jpg)
Around 8am, Saturday, the 12th, Bioware will be holding a press only preview of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Our PAX East coverage team will be streaming the preview live here on this post from 8am to 10am. After the event, they will post a HD quality recording of the preview ASAP.
Official post on the “release date” is here.
Update: The event is in 30mins. (9am EST) We’ll start streaming once we can.
Update (9:03 am): We are in. Going live ASAP.
Update (9:09 am): Might be a few minutes more. Beng herded like cattle. Going to go live ASAP.
Update (9:31 am): FRACK. Rep just told us the preview is at 10am. Why did someone tell us 8 then 9? GRRRR.
Update (9:52 am): (Overheard while in line with the Bioware reps.) Release date TENTATIVE for Q4 of this year! HUZZAH!
Update (10:13am): And we are live!
Really no more substance here than a sweet, sweet live capture of some people playing SW: TOR at PAX East. The game looks absolutely phenomenal and will probably give WoW a run for its money. Check out anything and everything SW: TOR related here and at the main website here.
Update: Tomorrow morning (3/12), we’ll be doing our best to live stream an exclusive press only preview. Stay tuned!
Though I may not be at Pax East the news continues to drop. A game that I myself have been looking forward to sense it’s first announcement Star Wars the Old Republic releases a brand new trailer. The Trailer was created using in game footage and looks beautiful.
Update: PAX East team member Robert Beshere has uploaded actual gameplay footage found here
