Unless you live under a rock.. you know that today was the first day of E3. And we got all kinds of goodies (side note, Mass Effect 3 looks AWESOME). Here’s the quick recap of today’s announcements:
1 – “Choose” video posted over on origin.com, this is the trailer that was shown during E3’s press event.
This is pretty much a collection of footage from all 3 CGI cinematics, with some new voice over ‘narrative’. No new footage (well, outside of the new stuff from ‘Return’) that I saw. It does a good job of giving a ‘montage’ like introduction to TOR.
2 – “Return” posted to the Official site. OMG! This is full of awesomesauce (in my completely unbiased opinion). This will also be the opening cinematic when you launch the game for the first time. Embedding here for ease of viewing:
After watching this, I may roll a smuggler for my first character. Dual Wielding blasters looks to be full of win.
3 – A useful, but minor update to the Official site, the addition of a Game Setting section to the site. This puts all 3 Cinematic trailers on the same page, with a bit of the story around each of them.
4 – A quick blurb from Stephen Reid explaining (again) the no release date at E3 thing. I honestly don’t get why people were expecting it, while I would have loved to have received release, pre-order, or open beta information today I wasn’t expecting it. But, apparently, some people were expecting it, and then complaining about not getting it. So, here’s Stephen’s post over on the Official forums:
‘Choose’ was always going to be shown at the E3 press conference. Unfortunately for us, we had a timing issue which put it live on Origin.com before the conference started.
‘Return’ we saved for our fans worldwide, debuting it on The Old Republic website at the same time the press conference started. If you haven’t watched it yet, see it here. ‘Return’ is also the intro cinematic to The Old Republic – you’ll see it when you start the game.
There will be no release date announced during E3 2011, and no pre-order details either. Our release date window has not changed. We are still aiming to release Star Wars: The Old Republic in the second half of 2011.
While I know many of you believed a release date announcement was going to happen – which is understandable – as I’ve said before, an announcement of that size will effectively be ‘pre-announced’, and we will not ‘bait and switch’ you. We aren’t going to lay a trail of subtle clues that lead to a release date announcement. We’ll be obvious. We’re just not there yet.
E3’s not over yet, though. This week we’ll be allowing the world’s media and fan sites to get hands-on with The Old Republic at the EA booth, and they’ll be reporting back on their experiences on Tatooine as well as seeing gameplay on Alderaan. Last but not least, they’ll get a glimpse at Operation: Eternity Vault, some of the high-end content in The Old Republic.
We’re bringing much of this to you on The Old Republic web site this week, so keep checking back – although I will pre-warn you, our Alderaan coverage will be slightly delayed (look for it in a few weeks).
I know many of you are disappointed. I know you want a release date – believe me, all of us know that. It is coming, I promise, and you’ll hear about it before it arrives – not through subtle clues, but through obvious signs.
5 – As if the desire for the game to be released wasn’t enough.. now you have other goodies to drool over. Razer is releasing TOR branded gaming gear! The fine folks over at IGN have the whole scoop but, here’s a shot of the keyboard:
Anyone who wants to buy me a full set of the TOR gaming gear, is more than welcome to! ;)
6 – Cool new in game screenshots. Ask A Jedi has got the skinny on these, they look good.. head on over and check them out. I really like the vehicle shots.