Beautifully written Mark; nostalgia in every paragraph.
I get more and more excited after every thing I read or see about this game. I can not wait!

Real time combat GOOD!

With KOTOR, it was line everyone's moves up, start combat, sit back and sip drink.

It was necessary for KOTOR, not so much for this new game.

Control! Unlimited CONTROL!

Awesine work with the coreographied combat!!!! Better than I expected.

No. If there is one hundred troopers coming at you during a quest/mission they are npc's and most likely the cannon fodder. In any MMO you need a VAST wealth of hostile npcs to maim and loot. If it was only player characters the experience would be lacking and albeit a bit too difficult. In most MMO's the experience each player is looking for is to feel like a bad *****. So taking down mobs of npcs of the other faction is more rewarding when you actually get to play it. There will be pvp (you can look at a number of interviews and articles about it) and it will be a strong suit from what I've read but you can go most of the game and avoid any pvp combat.

Hey I don't really get it! How can there be stories in an MMO if a fat kid from Bahamas calls you n00b? How could this surpass KotOR?
Anyway I wanted to ask: Are all the people who appear in this game actually controlled by another person? Let's say I'm in a battle, or a shootout, and I meet a hundred Republic troops. So they're all actual people?!

Cause if that's true, then how will battles be? If I'm a Jedi, for instance,
how will I be able to kill a thousand troops in a ground battle with my powers if they're all real people?

Plz reply!

I too am picky when it comes to realism. The new star war movies fight scenes were a bit over the top for my taste. I loved watching the fight scenes in Kurosawas Seven Samurai when I was younger. I know that jedi won't fight like samurai, but I think there is beauty in simple combat. Two warriors clashing steel (light), trying to survive, to kill.

Go Mark How!!

I'm really picky when it comes to realism. If something seems tacky or unreal, it dampens the experience for me. It's like making a mistake during a piano recital.

BUT, I can tell that these guys are working hard to avoid that. Keep up the good work gentlemen! B)

There is no Dark Side, nor a Light Side
There is Only the Force
I will do what I must to keep the balance
The balance is what keeps me together
There is no good without evil, but evil must not be allowed to flourish
There is passion, Yet peace
Serenity, Yet emotion
Chaos, yet order
I am the wielder of the flame, the protector of balance
I am the holder of the torch, lighting the way
I am the keeper of the flame, soldier of balance
I am a guardian of balance
I am a Gray Jedi

Mark, my friend, I would pay to be you right now! Keep up the good work, as well as keeping us informed!

Gotta say Mark, you have the best job IN THE WORLD at the moment. Animating for The Old Republic game. Haha, that has to be my dream job :P Good to hear from the animators too! Your an inspiration and make me want to keep working away on my animation demo reel. Keep up the good work man!

I just hope there is two classes.... One is the native class (I made it up most likly wont come true) where the person is a native to set area (example is ewok to Endor) and they stay there and can assist the people occupying there or spy for the Non occupents. Second is the Mandolorian class... Lets just face it people this wouldnt be a good Star Wars game without the Mandolorians, they are basically the only good fighters usuing blasters in Star Wars hands down.... Dont put them under "bounty hunter" class because they wont be that unless they just lost a war and need to regroup

i would like to be a zabrac duely noted they are not the most known speicies but still they need redemption due to the feats of darth maul, they are not all evil some are even on the council. i will not resort to begging or will i

@ Darth_Nihl:
True Bao Dur wasn't initially evil, but if you were favoring the dark side as the main char.(Jedi Exile) then Bao would inevitably turn with you, but all the same..if you favored the light side then he would become a more devout light side guy, his alignment truely depended on your alignment overall

Dude Bao Dur wasnt evil and its Zabrak.. Anyways most know from Darth Maul, but thats extrmely good. Darth Maul was insanly good in starwars, if it started with 1 not 4 then he would have most likly killed Obi-Wan

just wondering but will Jedi be able to use double light sabers like dark maul?

XD think i get the picture Mr. How

Shure it was amazing to watch the video documentation you people released allready, and i can`t be silence about:

right now (shure there is nothing final now i guess) the movement looks very god and real BUT only the single actions, what i miss is some kind of flow in between a single strike, jump ore doge...
means the moves of an action looks fine but the movement of the fight does not become a whole "film" more some "slide-show"...
what if the lightsabbers become more "heavy" so that the Knights have to keep their bodys in "balance" during a fight...?

(don`t mind i will will play the game, anyway XD )

I have a question for you Bioware. Will the NPC'S and Companion characters in this game talk or will we have to spend a lot of time reading in this game??? I hope that the NPC'S and Companion characters talk to you like they do in KOTOR 1 & 2. I always wanted to play an online star wars game where the NPC'S and Companion characters talk to you. It makes it much easier for you when spend all day working and you want come home to relax and play a game that you don't have to spend a lot of time reading quest to find out what you must do to complete it.

Keep up the good work Bioware!

Will this game be released on Xbox 360? I realise that consoles don't really suit MMO games and I also realise that it would be a tough task to make them. I'm a big fan of KOTOR 1 and 2. I would be deeply disapointed along with many other people if this game was never going to come out for the Xbox 360. Don't get me wrong I think PC's are great but every game I've ever had for the PC nearly always had frame rate issues and bad performance. And I already have a great community of friends on Xbox Live. I also realise that only certain games go with certain computers depending on when they were made. Its just PC games are too much hassle.

The Xbox 360 is all about been social and this would be absaloutly fantastic if it played on the 360 console. If it's possible then I'm sure its do able and you guys are the ones to do it. It would just take much more time. Considering that this game is so huge I would have to guess that this will be the last greatest Star Wars game ever made. As a big Star Wars fan I would love to see and play this game on the Xbox 360 along with many other Xbox 360 users. You guys dreamt to make a game like this and I dream to have a game like this. Please don't forget about people in my situation there as big a Star Wars fan as me and they deserve a game just like this one.

It's not up to Bioware to make a port. It's up to the producer(Lucas Arts) to allow Bioware to make it.

I really hope that in this game you don't have loading screens especially when you go from ground to space and space to ground. If you really want to make this game great and as atmospheric as possible this is something you must consider. But I'm sure you already are anyway. This is something I've always wanted in a game and I'm sure this is the same for many other people.
What I've seen of the game so far gives me hope that this will be a fantastic game.

There isnt enoguh computing power to have an entirely borderless game for an area of this size,
A whole planet could handle it, or a space sector, but not all the plaent and all the space connected at once.

I would however like to have the ability to fly from space towards the planet and load near wherever i flew towards, pwerhaps a loading screen on hte atmosphere so you cna still fly your ship at high altitude like a really high plane and eventually dock wherever is possible, like in mid desert, or in the wilderness.

ORRRRR Perhaps a shuttle that can launch from the bay to take you from orbit to the planet, so youd still be limited but still able to speed around certain spots without having to visit a shuttleport

Sounds good, but i hope and pray that this game does not follow the path of world of warcraft and star wars galaxies in any way. I hate cookie cutter templates that force you to put skill points in skills that you are not going use,and like world of warcraft, the over sized weapons are to childish.Reminds me of the weapons in star wars legos. a game i may like if i were 6 years of age.

I hope that we can fly our ships on planets and land them on the planets surface if the star ports are full or if we plan to land on a planet by stealth or if we are shot down and need to make an emergency landing on a near by planet. I also hope that we can land our ships on space stations and other star cruisers in space to do missions/quest in space or just to land on them to try and take them over.I hope that this game will go all the way with the star wars experience and not part of the way like most online games.

Bioware, please do not give us a carbon copy of every online game out there! Give us something unique! Something that looks and feels like a real star wars game. Give us something unlike sony's S.W.G. There game looks like star wars, but does not feel like it where a jedi is but nothing a profession and is easy to kill. if Jedi in the movies were like the ones in S.W.G. The galaxy would still be in chaos and every other profession would save the galaxy and not the Jedi who are supposed to be the elite of the elite or they would not be the keepers of peace and justice! Give the character's real like skills that you would see in the movies not some generic garbage.

Keep up the good work and i hope that i get the real Star wars experience and feel in S.W.T.O.R that S.W.G has failed to do because of there constant combat revamps. S.W.G pre-cu un-nerfed was the closest thing to getting right!

I totally agree with you! SWG was a disappointment for a number of things but most importantly, had to wait to fly a ship, couldn't be a Jedi till you 'found' the right path, made so much money so quickly that you could literally buy anything you wanted (so I hear). I quit playing after 3 months and went back to EQ for another year.

I so would totally agree with Rexx more! Here's what I'm looking for for example..

**Hiding behind a huge stack of boxes, and need to get to the end of the hall without the 6 tropper lining the hallway seeing me . I keep scouting around, I notice that there's a speeder bike just outside the doorway, and it's own left the engine running.

How do I get pass the guards, how does one get passed....*as I notice a large hanging cargo net down at the opposite end of the hallway*

Adjusting myself to get the best shot in the world with a crossbow, I rest my hands on my knees, breath patiently, focusing on the tether to cut it in half,
....hold my breath and squeeze...

As the sound of the bolt leaves the bow, I duck knowing the bolt will hit the target, wait for the crash, 2...1..go!

As the sound of the tether ripping echos through the halls the guards begin to rush to the net, I jump to the floor, and make a mad dash to the door!

Approach the door, the guard on the outside starts to walk across the doorway and I have only 1 chance to make it out!

He turns his head and sees me approaching but it's too late; I throttle him with my shoulder and we both go down. As I recover from the spill, as well as the guard, the speeder is 15 feet from me. A blaster pistol laser bolt zings past my head as I make 2 quick zig zags and jump in the shuttle!

No one is in it and it's still idling! I get in the pilots seat, hit the hatch button to close it as I hear the laser bolts hit the wheel cover. Thank the Jedi I took a few more lesson in shuttle maneuverability and training to get the hell outta here! As the shuttle rises from the ground, I can see swarms of Troopers gather beneath me as I get ready to hit the boosters; hoping they didn't employ a Bounty Hunter for extra insurance. After a long ride, and another jump to a more friendly planet, I gather myself at a local bar, and reach in to get my wallet and discover it's not there! My mind racing that I didn't drop it back at the outpost when I throttled the guard....***

In that scene, the ability to do all the things like this and the reality of the big possibility that someone is maybe after you early on in the game makes the game more realistic and not to mention fun!

I love BioWare and everything I've played so far from them, heck, because of them and NWN series my wife is a solid gamer in the fam! Whoota! I'm really expecting great things from them to come.

The combat should be as dynamical as it is in Force Unleashed. It's spectacular, dynamic and fetching. That's all we need I believe

I hope they make the combat views 1st and 3rd person (like Jedi academy) without any type of auto attack where you actually aim (if you have ranged or lightsaber throw) that way it doesn't make you completely helpless against a somewhat stronger opponent. Same thing with space but maybe being able to move around within your ship and be able to get on whatever turrets you may have if you do have any. For Jedi, I hope to god we can at least jump over things... like rocks, in SWG you couldn't jump over anything at all, especially very small objects. Hopefully the do have space, I'd love to launch a fighter from a capital ship and fight the sith and their capital ship and be able to move around mine and also being able to board theirs. It's probably alot to ask for but... Most other games have at least one of those things, but never everything at once. They have over a whole year a to finish up anyway, they can do it. I believe in them to get it done right ;)

I for one do not agree with game consoles and MMO's being combined.

Amen my Brother, Amen

If there keeping with the ktor games means were going to get skills feat hope they keep it alonge those lines. but hope the make it to were you got to think about you char. before you do something. please not another wow wannabe were you just push a button and get the same skills and spells ever 4 levels

I agree with the different forms of lightsaber skills and I'm sure they will do something like that, because well it is Bioware!
I do want to be able to look unique though, options options options..

Have they said whether or not there will be a quest to make our own Lightsaber or not ? Will it be part of the training?

I guess I just want a in depth training level to be able to train my character they way I want.

If im not mistaken in one of the newer vids this guy slips something about "from....bla bla bla bla...to building your own lightsaver" so im guessing they will :D I think its in the vid about Tython. Cheers to Bioware!

What i would luv to see in this game is Insane pvp, and small Planets that guilds can buy and build their own little Town for them to hang out, of if that dosent seem right, how about a big battle ship, this way if another guild declares war on another they can attack their planets and have space battles. man that would be really awsome wouldnt you think?

I'm just looking forward to kicking some Jedi butt on PvP. Poor guys won't know what hit 'em.

Jedi Trials - Trial of skill

Lightsaber combat was the base point for a Jedi in the (traditional) Trial of Skill. To pass as a Jedi Knight, a Padawan must show the following:

They must know all the forms (not to perform), all the maneuvers, marks of contact etc (and perform these) of basic lightsaber combat. They must be able to perform basic Shii-Cho They must show they can use the Force to aid their combat They must go through a series of obstacles, often devised by the master for a personal-course designed to test the Jedi's weaknesses and skills using the Force, their skills and prowess, and their lightsaber. They must prove themselves worthy by proving in combat that they know at least 1 main form to a very advanced degree and tested to a Jedi standard in a variety of ways and show that they have the skill. Must be able to use Saber throw efficiently and effectively

:)

ttp://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lightsaber_combat#The_seven_forms_of_lightsaber_combat

Please have the The seven forms of lightsaber combat!
Form I: Shii-Cho "Way of the Sarlacc" or "Determination Form"(basic form all Jedi teach this,MUST master it to become knight)
Form II: Makashi "Way of the Ysalamir" or "Contention Form"
Form III: Soresu "Way of the Mynock" or "Resilience Form"
Form IV: Ataru "Way of the Hawk-Bat" or "Aggression Form"
Form V: Shien / Djem So "Way of the Krayt Dragon" or "Perseverance Form"
Form VI: Niman "Way of the Rancor" or "Moderation Form"
Form VII: Juyo / Vaapad "Way of the Vornskr" or "Ferocity Form"(Juyo,since it is master Vindu that has developed Vaapad form from Juyo)
Other forms of lighsaber combat---->
Sokan - using terrain to one's advantage
Shien - attacking many foes at once with wide, sweeping strokes and an underhand grip
Jar'Kai - two-handed lightsaber combat, using one blade for attack, another for defense
Trispzest - a type of aerial dueling
Dun Möch - distracting and taunting an opponent, a Sith technique

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lightsaber_combat#The_seven_forms_of_ligh...
would make the lighsaber combat Awesome(and right)and totally different
(and could/must have limit..say at max lvl(or master) you Have points? or something? for max 2-3 forms? but if you want you can put it on many different ones(exept for basic form that all jedi must have)

I love StarWars, I played SWG stopped when they changed certain things about it, but StarWars will put an end to all other MMO's i play. This is the one game where I want to be the bad guy. I've had enough of the Order, Alliance, and all the other ***** good guys lol. Can't wait for this to hit. Any idea when there will be a beta release date so i can apply for one?

i would like to see a beta some time in the future that would be great

Cant wait Mark, you guys keep up the good work. :)

I can't wait like everyone else. The other mmos are wearing out and we need some new content and play style. My first mmo was galaxies and i miss it greatly. The videos and art look great and I feel it will blow wow out of the water. Wow is running out of Ideas and the game play has gotten to repetative, like class specs going through cycles and class specificity has to me gone out the window.I hope you guys make the classes have there own importance to game play. WarOL has some great ideas as far as pvp and grouping but again fell short on technical effects and lost people fast. Keep up the good work and hope to see this game this year.

I hope it'll have such an unique experience as SW:Galaxies was before, either to make sure that becoming a jedi / sith will be REALLY hard (pre-CU: but so worth it once you've reached it, due to the strength of your char) or have another unique impact which really makes having a character in this game unique and powerfull.

If all other classes are at the same strength as the jedi/sith, Im afraid it'll ruin the experience and that people will leave.. So yes, PLEASE take your time, perfect the gameplay and artwork, balance the power between classes in a realistic way according to the movies, so that when it releases, SW:TOR will be the most awesome MMO to date (beating WoW wouldnt be difficult anymore)

im sorry. you are not thinking clearly on class balancing. if Jedi/Sith were the most powerful in every way by far, everyone would, as you said, 'leave fast'
sigh.
Some of us want to live out our trooper/bounty hunter fantasies, and if you have them do what you say, that is ruined. i REFUSE to friggin play a game where NO one will be a class because a sith can flick them aside like they are nothing. and as they said, the troopers arent as they were in the movies.
these elite troopers are able to tangle with ANYBODY. thats their whole point. and if you remember, bounty hunters can fight toe to toe with jedi. so please try to actually REALIZE how an MMO is balanced, instead of asking for a movie like balance. no one would play any other class if sith/jedi could just carve through the trooper class of the same lvl with no issues whatsoever.

I have to agree with Mortilis that it will not take much to beat wow they way its been going now. I played it for to long and wow is easy to get burned out on.

This game is the best game ive seen since star wars galaxies. please take your time im definatly not going anywhere

will the old republic be on xbox 360

i don't think so... I would like that, but who knows...

i was really hoping for kotorIII in xbox360, but i believe this will be a great game...

YES TAKE YOUR TIME GUYS!!!

really want to se more videos,really want to see athmospheric flights,and more enviroment like running around with a char in different enviroments.

hope you have a little ninja style playing to,example jumping on roof tops and fighting each other :) (off course on high buildings as well :)

much ninja style i hope it will be,remember sith lure in the shadows hihi

ohh forgot,would it not be fun to have like 4 guys flying in the same ship and while one of them steering the ship the other 3 can take a banta drink or something and just talk :) use your imagination (or how you spell it) sorry my english is bad as you can see :(

YES TAKE YOUR TIME GUYS!!!

really want to se more videos,really want to see athmospheric flights,and more enviroment like running around with a char in different enviroments.

hope you have a little ninja style playing to,example jumping on roof tops and fighting each other :) (off course on high buildings as well :)

much ninja style i hope it will be,remember sith lure in the shadows hihi

The real big kicker for me no offense to anyone <3s But flash lightsaber combat is not the real big thing I am looking to get from this. My hope Is what I would . The Medical role of caring for all these Jedi and their combat injuries. Seen ALOT of talk about force combat and things...but no mention of a side job or support job like a medic. Yes Yes I understand their will be companion characters but their can be just as much commoradrie between a medic and their unit. And I really would like to preform that kind of role in this first truly to grab me Star Wars MMO adventure. Anyone keep it up..And a MEDIC please even if its a stay out of combat and come in and preform duties after a fight or something. Thanks again for your time.

I think it's obvious it's not just for the game. The number of toy swords I've played with in my time as a child and still the thought of it brings a smile to my face. I'd love to join you guys in the duelling action.

Anyway, shows that a lot of effort is being put in. Want to see plenty of decent action sequences in the game when it comes though.

You're definitely encouraging people to become Jedi characters with that type of talk, which will be more fun for me when I plan on creating a non-Jedi that hunts Jedi.....maybe a bit like Atton from KOTOR 2.

Bring on the game, now if only I could encourage that type of thing where I work, though we don't have a coffee machine. Also, don't have lightsabers. What a shame.

This will be a great game, but please take your time guys.