Image: Star Wars : The Old Republic : Beta Screenshots by “X” « BetaCake : MMO news and leaks. Served as intended. Fresh..
Easily the most beautiful set of screenshot from The Old Republic I’ve seen thus far.
This game looks stunning. I do have one tiny gripe, however — which admittedly isn’t so obviou here — in that it appears they’ve used the videogame equivalent of “matte paintings” for the horizon backdrops on at least some of the worlds. I’m tentatively not a fan of this; it can fool players into thinking they’ve got a bigger horizon-line than they do because the matte backdrop isn’t effected by the game’s draw distance. However it also feels a bit like… cheating. And not to mention makes zones feel small (you can’t get away with this trick if you have a huge, multi-zone world; only in places with a “horizon” players can never reach). And bugs out a bit in the middle distance. Hrm.
Guess we’ll see come December.
Link: SWTOR Slave Leia outfit ~ Star Wars The Old Republic | SWTOR.
Well. We knew it was coming, I guess.
Actually, the most disappointing thing about this is that it’s apparently gender-specific. So no, you cannot wear this as a male character (not even an equivalent).
Also, for comparison, the original costume. Oh and no: This isn’t the most egregiously revealing outfit in the game.
Link: Do I look surprised? - Wasted Talent.
Now doesn’t this look familiar…
Link: Siha has a post over at crewskills.net commenting on comments on reviews prompted by TOR's recently-dropped press embargo.
What never fails to amaze me is just how easily fooled by abstractions gamers apparently are. People criticise MMORPG quests for being “kill x, fetch y” all the while apparently blithely ignoring the fact that the quests in every RPG are exactly identical. As I’ve probably mentioned before, literally the only difference between a WoW quest and (say) a DA2 quest is the presentation; text that says “kill ten templars” versus four cutscenes of “break into the Chantry and rescue my ex boyfriend and I’ll give you those maps you wanted”.
TOR blends both; it does the cinematics of a single player but it keeps the quest log “honesty” of an MMO. Yet it still gets critics griping that its questing isn’t “innovative” enough.
Guys, seriously. Just turn off your quest objective HUD and… there. Single player RPG questing a go-go.