The Esseles

The Esseles, a Republic transport that carries some of the most high-profiled members of the Galactic Senate across the galaxy, has come under siege from the opportunistic Grand Moff Kilran. This is the setting for the first Republic Flashpoint you can experience in The Old Republic. You get your chance at around level 9. This walkthrough is only a portion of the entire flashpoint so expect more when you play.

Han and Chewie

Harrison Ford was on Jimmy Kimmel recently to promote his new movie Cowboys & Aliens but as he is in the green room he welcomes an uninvited guest.

Seems Han and Chewie haven't been on good terms since defeating the Empire.

Join The Fight

Comic-Con 2011 began yesterday and Star Wars: The Old Republic held its panel. It showed off some reveals like voice actors, companions and mounts but most importantly they unveiled the pre-orders to the public. Along with those reveals they premiered a new in-game trailer called Join The Fight.

Pre-Order NOW!!!

Some really big news coming from the SW:ToR website today. Pre-orders are now available from official distributors and of course EA's Origin online store. The Standard Edition comes at $60, Digital Deluxe Edition is $80 and the Collector's Edition will be $150. What comes in each edition has been mentioned in the leaks earlier this week in my previous post. Also with each pre-order comes an early start to the game and a colour stone that could change the lightsaber and blaster bolt colour. As of now the Collector's Edition is sold out on Origin and Amazon.

You can check it out for yourself here: http://www.swtor.com/preorder

Leaks... Leaks Everywhere

As I am currently in pain from removing my wisdom teeth while I'm writing this, it seems that pre-order information on The Old Republic will be spilt during this week at Comic-Con. Box art images have leaked onto the Internet with a little bit of pre-order info. Polish website Empik Media released the box art and it actually looks wonderful. It seems to be legitimate as it is very well done and follows the usual Star Wars template. It is a bit of a mix between the original Knights of the Old Republic cover and the movie posters. See for yourself.

Spanish website Xtralife released an image of the collector's edition information although it is not confirmed but this also looks a legitimate image. I let you see for yourself what the collector's edition will include...

In case it's too small to read, I have provided a typed out version:

LIMITED COLLECTOR'S EDITION INCLUDES:

* Exclusive Gentle Giant Darth Malgus statue

* Star Wars: The Old Republic game discs in collectible metal case
* The Journal of Master Gnost-Dural annotated by Satele Shan
* Old Republic galaxy map
* Custom Security Authentication Key (i.e. Authenticator)
* Exclusive Music of Star Wars: The Old Republic CD
* High-Quality Collector's Edition Box

INCLUDES 7 ADDITIONAL DIGITAL ITEMS:
* Flare Gun: Fire flares into the air
* Training Droid: Hovers at your side for combat assistance
* HoloDancer: Project your own holographic dancer
* HoloCam: Keep visual records of in-game adventures
* STAP: Sleek and unique in-game vehicle
* Exclusive Mouse Droid: Spun-ky droid to join your adventures
* Exclusive Collector's Edition Store: Unique in-game vendor with a dynamic assortment of items

According to the picture, the game will be on 4 Discs, which I can only assume are DVDs - given the size of the game.

A Great Beginning

Last Friday The Old Republic website released a developer blog on how they created the intro cinematic cut scenes for each character class. They specified on how much they wanted to imitate the original Star Wars title scroll down to the exact font, speed, spacing and margins. They had used the Empire Strikes Back scroll as their model. The developers showed what was to be expected by releasing a portion of the Sith Warrior Class Introduction:

They also included a sort of making of video for the smuggler class introduction:

Episode I: The A Cappella

Some clever guys came up with the idea to turn the lightsaber fight between Darth Maul, Qui Gon Jinn and Obi Wan into an a cappella. With their own voices they replaced the score, sound effects and dialogue to make an entertaining video.

Fleet Commander

If you want to feel like Admiral Ackbar during the films then I have found the perfect game for you. A Star Wars concept game called Fleet Commander is a touch-screen game on a 20 foot multi-touch display. It  designed by computer science grad student Arthur Nishimoto and developed at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois in Chicago. But of course you want to see it, so watch the video and don't worry it's not a trap.

Galaxies Fall To The Old Republic

As most would suspect, the reason for Star Wars Galaxies closure was due to The Old Republic. Over Entertainment held its SOE Fan Faire in Las Vegas. SOE's President John Smedley indicated that Galaxies was closing because of the upcoming release of BioWare's MMO.

" ‘It was time to turn it off. We have a contractual relationship that’s ending in 2012, The Old Republic launching, a bunch of other business things with LucasArts,’ Smedley said. ‘And then you look at the odds of a pretty large portion of the audience moving to TOR, which looks like a terrific game. I think that’s going to be really well-received by the population.’ "

Who knows, maybe eventually TOR will shut down MMO giant World of Warcraft.

The Padawan Menace

Cartoon Network has (sort of) unveiled the new Lego Star Wars special called The Padawan Menace. It will air at 7pm EST on July 22nd. Initial reports were saying that it would be released in fall but an updated press release indicated the it would debut sooner. It is planned to be a half an hour special and would be repeated throughout the weekend.

Call Of Duty: Galactic Warfare

If you are waiting on the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic and you have a copy of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare lying around, well, you're in luck. A modding group called BlackMonkeys have been creating their own mod to the franchise for the better part of two years. The mod consists of modern warfare in a Star Wars skin. The mod comes with seven different maps straight out of Star Wars: Mos Eisley, Bespin, Bestine, Not a Cave, Jundland, Junland Dusk, and Anchorhead. It will also include the many characters, armor and weapons from the Star Wars Universe. It looks like it could Battlefront 3, although I'm not sure if there are any lightsabers.

Green Peace Denied

So a few days ago I posted the Green Peace-Volkswagen-Darth Vader spoof ad. Although it seems to be blocked by LucasFilms following copyright complaints. The ad was used to attack Volkswagen and their now famous commercial for their environmental credentials. Volkswagen did get the O.K. to use Darth Vader and the "Imperial March" in their ad while Green Peace did not.

Choose

Also, yesterday on The Old Republic's YouTube channel, they released the "Choose" cinematic trailer. This trailer was shown during EA's E3 press conference. It shows both sides of the war leading up to the events of The Old Republic while including footage from the three cinematic trailers.

The Great Hunter

It's update Friday on the Star Wars: The Old Republic website. This week they're dealing out a new trailer of the progression of the bounty hunter class. The class has tons of armor and a lot of explsives and guns, so if you wish to tear up a certain place, bounty hunter would be perfect for you. Also, if you had a major Boba Fett fantasy, that could work too.