Corellian Run Radio

Discuss this episode on the forums here. Roxanne is sick this week, but we have JJ from TOROcast to fill the third seat and make sure we never go under an hour!  We're feeling feisty this week and we have several lively debates on everything from how much you need to know about the game before the game, whether companions should be money-making machines, and whether day/night cycles are necessary in MMOs. FACT OR FICTION: Can you pick out the confirmed fact from the tall tales? This week’s host challenge involves the beta testing invites. FROM THE NEWSNET & BEYOND: Roundup of the most important announcements and news. * Fri Update 7/1: Bounty Hunter Character Progression video. Carla thinks it’s weird that the Bounty Hunter doesn’t look like Boba Fett. Kathy thinks it’s weird that the Bounty Hunter looks like a pill bug. * Fri Up 7/8: Damion Schubert’s Dev Blog on maps, maps, maps. * Supreme Court decision on the sale of violent video games. A win for the gaming industry. * SDCC July 21-24. Stephen Reid gets accused of parsing words…by using words. David Bass talks about drawing for extended playtime at the off-site location for SWTOR, ME3, Dragon Age 2 DLC. Sign up for drawing on July 12. * Dev Tracker: Georg says server first achievements highly unlikely. * Dev Tracker: Damion says you won’t be able to use your companions as money making machines by sending them out to gather constantly here and here. * Dev Tracker: Stephen Reid says BioWare has heard the community’s ridicule of the speeders and to stay tuned. * WoW’s F2P trial. WoW’s Lead Designer Tom Chilton tells PC Gamer that “at some point, it may not make sense for us to have a subscription fee.” * Welcome to Adam, Mark, Jason, Noah, and Chris, our new staff writers. Check out their new articles and opinion pieces on our site. * Happy Birthday CRR! We’re giving away 10 copies of

Discuss this episode on the forums here. We’ve been trying to get Dover on the show since we found out how fun he is in person at PAX East earlier this year.  The planets finally aligned and we met up to talk about SWTOR and how to handle people who annoy you. FACT OR FICTION: Can you pick out the confirmed fact from the tall tales?  This week’s host challenge involves knowing your SWTOR biographies. FROM THE NEWSNET & BEYOND: Roundup of the most important announcements and news. * Fri Update 6/17: Fan Friday, Ask a Jedi in Fan Site Spotlight. * Fri Up 6/17: Polls!  What did you like most from E3 here and vote for your favorite extended universe SWTOR content here. * Fri Up 6/17: SWTOR wins bunches of awards. * Fri Up 6/17: Developer Blog: Post-Writing Polish by Ian Ryan.  Writers get paid to play the game, no fair! * Fri Up 6/24: Battle for Alderaan Highlights video. * Fri Up 6/24: E3 Highlights video. * More Origin info on Dev Tracker.  Stephen Reid clarifies here, here, here, and here. * Release Date Drama.  Stephen Reid tells us we’ve been bad and he’s locking the thread.  MCVUK uses UK retail shop as evidence of new release date here. * Georg Zoeller tells us why we should do class quests here, here, and here. * Damion Schubert talks about Light/Dark gear and ambiguous conversation wheel choices here. * Star Wars Galaxies ends.  Massively interview with John Smedley here. Quick Mentions * Offsite hands-on gameplay outside SDCC at Hilton Gaslamp hotel, says David Bass. * Damion Schubert confirms ...

Discuss this episode on the forums here. E3 was a doozy!  Our eyeballs are still bleeding from watching and reading all the coverage.  You sure won’t hear us complaining that there wasn’t enough new info – as is evidenced by the length of this episode.  Hard to believe that this is only one week of news.  This week we talk about, well, everything.  We’re also very excited to receive our first call-in questions. Opening sponsorship spot is a clip from Ehren Ziegler’s spoof video, “Your Lightsaber and You.” Watch the whole thing at Comedy Central here. FACT OR FICTION: Can you pick out the confirmed fact from the tall tales?  This week’s host challenge involves companions, operations, and James Ohlen. FROM THE NEWSNET & BEYOND: Roundup of the most important announcements and news. * “Return,” new cinematic by Blur Studios. * “Choose,” new trailer from Origin.com.  Jennifer Hale FTW! * E3 2011 Game Features Preview: cinematic storytelling, space combat, operations, warzones, ahhhhhhhh! * "Eternity Vault" trailer.  End game!  They said end game! * “E3 2011: Tatooine Walkthrough.” The ever-affable Dallas Dickinson chats his way through questing and combat in Tatooine.  Excellent depiction of how it feels to play the game. * Live coverage: Daniel Erickson Tatooine gameplay demo plus Q & A. * GameTrailers: James Ohlen Tatooine gameplay demo. * Gamespot: Daniel Erickson Alderaan gameplay demo. * Other E3 Reveals Sources: BioWare Pulse interview with Casey Hudson and Dallas Dickinson, Machinima interview with Daniel Erickson, Darth Hater interview with Daniel Erickson, Newsarama interview with James Ohlen, Gamespot interview with Daniel Erickson, Fureur interview with Daniel Erickson (translation thanks to KC-Cullen), IGN interview with Daniel Erickson, Machinima interview with James Ohlen,

Discuss this episode on the forums here. It’s been three long weeks since our last podcast – great to be back!  Anything from more than a week ago gets the Quick Mentions treatment so we can dig into the meaty stuff like debating digital downloads and what we expect from raids.  We’re trying a new sound editing set up which, unfortunately, resulted in some static.  A thousand apologies plus a thousand promises to fix that before our next ‘cast. FACT OR FICTION: Can you pick out the confirmed fact from the tall tales?  This week’s host challenge involves macros, vehicles, and stealth. Comments FROM THE NEWSNET & BEYOND: Roundup of the most important announcements and news. * Friday Update 5/20: Fan Site Summit Video.  Fan Sites loved watching themselves.  We wonder if anyone else cared, but we give it a thumbs up! * Fri Update 5/20: Fan Friday, Fan Site Spotlight on SWTOR Life, Community Q& A, Studio Insider on Combat Audio. * Fri Update 5/20: SWTOR announces bunches of cons they will attend through the end of the year.  Stephen Reid cautions that one should not draw conclusions based on their convention schedule. * Fri Update 5/27: Trooper Armor Progression video gets people excited about big guns and knocking girls off their feet. * Fri Update 6/3: The Lost Suns Issue #1 on sale June 8th. * Fri Update 6/3: EA Games starts digital download service, Origin.  Stephen Reid explains here and here.  Should we be upset that SWTOR won’t be available on Steam? * Fri Update 6/3: Advanced Classes and their Skill Tree Names.  Kathy and Roxanne are nearly overwhelmed with the info, Carla was expecting more. * MMORPG interview with Georg Zoeller on Advanced Classes.  Information overload!  Game mechanics mavens rejoice.  Kathy didn’t even want to read it.  Stances sound curiously Asian. * Friday Update 6/3: Fantastic preview trailer sets the stage for E3 reveals. * IGN’s Live Show schedule. * Live EA Press Conference Monday June 6th 12:30 pm Pacific.  You can watch it at Gamesp...

Discuss this episode on the forums here. We’re back to our regular format this week with Carla, Kathy, and Roxanne.  We also invited the fellows from TORWars, Jeff Hollis and David Moore, just because they are fun.  The five of us debate Datacrons and the bolster system, plus we venture into release date speculation.  Jeff and David have to leave after the Newsnet segment, which is good because Roxanne gets very, um,  “excited” when we talk about skipping story in BioWare games.  Somehow she manages to bring Silence of the Lambs into the conversation. FACT OR FICTION: Can you pick out the confirmed fact from the tall tales?  This week’s host challenge involves Khem Val, the Codex, and auto-facing. FROM THE NEWSNET & BEYOND: Roundup of the most important announcements and news. * Friday Update 5/6: The Codex.  Damion Schubert explains how explorers get some love in this MMO.  He also encourages people to take the Bartle gamer DNA test.  Official forums debate here. * Friday Update 5/13: Sith Inquisitor time!  Video, companion Khem Val, and sharing the Sith Warrior’s spaceship.  Is she Sorceror?  Is she Assassin?  Doesn’t matter, we just like her British accent. * CRR interview with Georg Zoeller.  Georg makes the case that maybe AC choices ARE one-size-fits-all.  Also, he doesn’t laugh us out of the room when we bring up speederbike jousting, so let the speculation begin! * PeeVeePee.  Killing enemies for the community!  Matchmaking & bolster system discussed on official forums.  Our PvP roundup plus audio of Gabe Amatangelo Q&A here. * Release date speculation.  We look into our crystal ball and make guesses based on…no real evidence.  TORWars guys say November, BOO.  Remember the MCV article that guessed September and then got so much fan hate?  Now we WISH. * SWTOUR Drawing 1.  Deadline March 17th, 11:59 pm ET.  Winners will be contacted March 18th.  Details for entry here. Quick Mentions * Camera view distance configurable says Georg * E3 June 7-9, Los Angeles.  David Bass asks who wants to come to a community meet and greet? * Musco, fo, and Kimiko step down from TOROcast.  Samm soldiering on.  Best wishes to everyone. SITH OR JEDI? We find out which path we walk in real life with The Test of the “Do Not Block Driveway” Sign. COMMUNITY BUZZ Extra Credits: “Graphics vs. Aesthetics.” These brilliant folks discuss why crummy graphics can still have great aesthetics and vice versa.

Senior Community Online Manager Stephen Reid and Senior Community Coordinator David Bass sat down with us for a post-Fan Site Summit roundup.  We talked about planning the event, the dangers of communicating anything at all on the forums, fan site feedback.  We hope you enjoy this behind-the-scenes look at the Fan Site Summit. SWTOUR Drawing 1 We’re giving away some of the swag we picked up in Austin – posters and a couple copies of Deceived.  Our first drawing is for a set of SWTOR posters – one Darth Malgus poster and one Ven Zallow poster.  Find out how to enter here. CRR SWTOUR Content CRR Interview with Georg Zoeller FanSite Summit Recap, Part 1 FanSite Summit Recap, Part 2 FanSite Summit Recap, Part 3 FanSite Summit Recap, Part 4 Carla’s Imperial Agent review Kathy’s general SWTOR review, including Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, Black Talon Check out these participating fansites for #SWTOUR coverage: Darth Hater, TOROCast, Mos Eisley Radio, Ask A Jedi, TOR-Talk, TORWars, TOR Syndicate, Gamona, InGame, SWTOR.EU, Fureur, SWTOR Life, SWTOR UK, SWTOR-FR. Thanks from Corellian Run Radio * Stephen Reid and David Bass for talking to us about the Fan Site Summit * Everyone who sent us sample Force Cloak commercials.  We had fun listening to them.

Lead PvP Designer Gabe Amatangelo kicked off the Tuesday session with a short presentation on PvP in warzones.  Many features of SWTOR warzones focus on building community behavior through the proper placement of "carrots," which entice players away from that all-for-me mentality, and nudges them toward a let's-coordinate-and-beat-the-other-guys strategy. Recap of Gabe's presentation, our warzone experiences, and Q&A highlights after the jump. PRESENTATION Badges, Community Building PvP In SWTOR warzones, each player has a role to play, and each player is encouraged to play as part of a team.  Badges are rewarded for an array of teamwork-oriented behaviors. * The tanking Guard ability absorbs damage to a friendly player within fifteen meters.  A bubble-like visual cue tells you the player is being protected, while a projectile animation to the tank shows that damage is being absorbed.  Damage to the tank is normal, damage to those being protected is diminished. * Defending an objective earns badges not only for the player who clicked on the turret, but also for the players nearby. * If you collect enough badges without dying, you earn a badge streak reward. * Commendations: at the end of the warzone, you can vote a fellow teammate as a kind of most valuable player.  Commendations are awarded. Valor, Ranks, Gear * PvP sets are unique and are purchased with valor tokens. * You can also buy PvP consumables and trinkets with valor tokens. * All valor tokens are awarded at the end of the match. * There will be ranks. * PvP gear has approximately a ten percent edge over equivalent PvE gear. Misc. * Resolve: any crowd control ability triggers a Resolve bar above the victim's head.  Each crowd control attack fills the Resolve bar more.  When the bar is filled, the player is immune to crowd control for a certain amount of time. * Power-Ups available on the battlefield. * Teams that own one of the objectives gain additional taxi paths back to the action. * When defeated you do not come back at full health.  Take a minute to buy useful consumables from the nearby vendor before hopping onto the speederbike to get back to the battlefield. THE WARZONE The presentation ended and we were allowed to start the Alderaan warzone.  After a short practice session, we started the match for keepsies.  Lots of laughing and dying and killing.  First match went to the Republic, second match went to the Empire.  Stephen Reid warned that whoever won two out of three would earn a nerf for the entire faction.  That didn't stop the Republic team from going for the win in the final match,  an exciting back and forth exchange that many times looked like a Sith victory, but always tilted back in the Republic's favor. "WHY CAN'T THE EMPIRE STOP LOSING???" someone shouted at one point.  I think it was Dover.  He likes to shout a lot. Finally, the Republic prevailed.  Stephen Reid looked at the numbers ticking down and pronounced, "It's over."  Within another minute or so, the Republic had made a comeback of, shall we say, heroic proportions.  The last seconds of the match had TOROcast's Samm, refusing to die as he slashed, tumbled, and even somehow leapt onto the gun turret, with Empire players trying to do him in.  Just when it looked like it was curtains for his Jedi Consular, the timer finally ran out and the victory message declared the Republic winners.   Applause and high-fives went around the room. One word: cinematic. I leaned over to Samm and asked, "How did it feel?"  Samm can always be counted on to give an honest, heartfelt reaction. "Perfect," he said.  "It felt perfect." Q&A WITH GABE AMATANGELO

This week Kathy, Carla, and Lethality from Ask A Jedi sit down to rehash their visit to BioWare Austin for the first ever Fan Site Summit.  We talk about what we took away from the Q & A sessions, our personal interviews, and especially how we feel about the game after playing several hours in the origin worlds and the early level Imperial flashpoint. Check out these participating fansites for #SWTOUR coverage: Darth Hater, TOROCast, Mos Eisley Radio, Ask A Jedi, TOR-Talk, TORWars, TOR Syndicate, Gamona, InGame, SWTOR.EU, Fureur, SWTOR Life, SWTOR UK, SWTOR-FR. Damion Schubert Q &A: full audio and highlights listed here. Daniel Erickson & Blaine Christine Q & A: full audio and highlights listed here. Writers Q & A: Darth Hater audio here.  Our highlights here. CRR Georg Zoeller highlights here.  Video snippet here.  Georg’s hilarious post about his typical day, along with his take on our interview with him here. Ask A Jedi's interview with Damion Schubert here.  See what Kathy means about his intense facial expressions! TOROCast 100th episode here. Mos Eisley Radio here.  We appear on their multi-host Fan Site Summit podcast.  Look for it soon. Thanks from Corellian Run Radio * BioWare, for inviting us to the wonderful Fan Site Summit.  Special thanks to Stephen Reid, David Bass, and Georg Zoeller. * Lance Baumgard, Honey Dijon for leaving nice reviews on iTunes

Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller wrapped up the Summit with an intimate Q&A session with the few fansites that remained Tuesday afternoon.  Our favorite reveals: * Metrics are mostly used to follow up on player feedback, rather than as the starting ground for figuring things out. * Metrics help figure out the right balance for difficulty.  Devs look to see if players are challenged and learning, but “we’re not afraid of death as part of the game experience.” * Whereas players in other MMOs may use only two to three primary abilities, SWTOR is designed so that players will use four to five. * Right now Bounty Hunters level faster because their first companion is Mako, a healer.  This results in less downtime.  Devs are trending toward making everyone’s first companion more of a jack-of-all-trades. * More Imperial Agent love: Georg says, “I actually think that some of the best story in the game is on the Agent class, some of the best characters you encounter is on that class.” * It is natural that some classes are more popular than others.  Devs will not buff or nerf classes just to artificially achieve equal representation of all classes. * In solo play, relying completely on companion AI is sufficient.  Flashpoints and open world PvP requires more micro-managing for optimal play.  AI-wise, companions are about 60% effective when compared to an actual player.

Lead Writer Daniel Erickson and Live Producer Blaine Christine teamed up to field questions about the game.  We’re sad the part where Stephen Reid tells Daniel Erickson that he has to stop talking so much was cut out. Favorite reveals after the jump. Here are our favorite reveals: * Blaine Christine has the power to command everyone at BioWare to log on and go jump up and down on one spot in Nar Shaddaa for fifteen minutes. * Datacrons show up on your map while questing. * No vendors on your ship. * The role of companions is increasing.  Daniel Erickson says big things are coming down the pipe that will change “everything that you guys are thinking how we deal with them.” * Daniel Erickson: “This game is not built to play without your companions.” * AI recently improved so companions will heal other party members, not just you. * New crew skill: Archaeology. * Empire and Republic will mingle from an early start.  They meet face to face on Nar Shaddaa, but cannot fight.  By the next world, it’s everyone in everyone else’s face. * Cross-faction communication is still being tested.

Principal Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert answered questions on a wide range of topics.  We got some important reveals in this twenty-four minute Q&A session.  Listen to the full audio to hear Kathy get derailed when Damion starts giving her the crazy eyebrows as she asks her question about gear for neutral players!  She begged Brooks to let her re-record her question, but he was a meanie and said no.  He also laughed and said, ‘I felt SO bad for you!” Our favorite reveals after the jump. Here are our favorite reveals: * Dark and Light armor is available from drops and vendors right now. * Neutral armor is not in the game right now, but it is in the works for strictly Gray players.  It will be better to be pure gray than leaning towards Dark or Light. * The extremes: +5 Light, -5 Dark * Companion Affection Rating affects the chance to get a crit on a crafted item in a small way.  It affects the length of time needed to complete a crafted item to a greater extent.  However, in general, Affection Rating will not tilt crew skill effectiveness in an overly dramatic way. * You can increase Companion Affection Rating with gifts, as in Dragon Age. * Mini-games like Pazaak are not in the game right now.  However, they are definitely on Damion’s “Big Wall of Crazy.”  Especially Pazaak. * Crafted items will not have random stats -- too annoying to mouse over each piece of identically-named gear to check individual stats. * Guild advancement system probably not in game at release.  But remember the Big Wall of Crazy! * Some in-game tools for role-players, but SWTOR will not heavily focus on role-playing.  “The best role-playing comes from the imagination.”

Join the discussion about this episode here. It’s just the home team this week, which is probably good because there was a TON of new information to cover.  We’re excited that companions are back to the forefront again – companions in flashpoint player slots and dev tracker talk about companion romances.  We also find out Carla won’t save seats in a movie theater. Fact or Fiction: Can you pick out the confirmed fact from the tall tales?  This week’s host challenge involves the titles, underwater shenanigans, and companions. From the Newsnet & Beyond: Roundup of the most important announcements and news. * Official PAX East 2011 Highlights video.  Check out our article for names and time stamps. * UK Hands-On event at Gamerbase.  Blog post from Moon Over Endor here, official forums thread on gameplay here, Doghouse Gamer Q & A session here, Aartan Away podcast with Q & A session here. * Daniel Erickson talks swimming, companions, conversation wheel, titles, datacrons here. * Friday Update 4/8: Advanced Classes Update by Georg Zoeller.  Tanks, Healers, and Stealth, oh my!  Dual spec poll here.  Deaths on Ord Mantell map here. * Friday Update 4/15: Fan Friday.  We made the Fan Site Spotlight!  Fan art, avatars, polls, etc. here.  E3 announcement here. * Friday Update 4/15: Studio Insider: Environment Polish.  Senior Environment Artist Robby Lamb discusses adding finishes touches, lighting, and more. * Friday Update 4/15: Community Q &A.  Senior Game Designer William Wallace tackles questions about class roles, gear, class abilities, and more.  Georg Zoeller talks about DPS output comparisons between classes here.  Thanks to gaou for picking that out for us. * Fan Site Summit April 24-26.  CRR, along with a number of other SWTOR fansites and podcasts, has been invited to tour the BioWare Austin location.  We look forward to seeing the BioWare offices, talking to the great people there, and hanging with the other fansites. Quick Mentions * CRR’s James Ohlen PAX East interview here. * Damion Schubert says loading screen will have class quest recaps. * Buffed.de reveals the next warzone, The Voidstar.  Darth Hater’s article here.  Check out the comments section for translation of highlights. Sith or Jedi? We find out which path we walk in real life with The Test of the Movie Theater Seating..

James Ohlen, Game Director of Star Wars: The Old Republic, took a few minutes to talk to us at PAX East.  We touch on guilds, how designers must now listen to playtesting feedback, and the balancing act of expectation vs. innovation.  James also takes our Sith or Jedi test, The Test of the Elevator Door. The brief silence after the one-minute mark denotes the ninety-seconds of questions about guilds that James couldn’t discuss. Transcript of interview after the jump. CRR: A couple days ago they released a lot of information about guilds, which was very exciting to a lot of people.  Can you tell us a little bit about the pre-launch?  You have guilds that are registering ahead of time, is that right? James Ohlen: Yeah, so we know that one of the key points to having a successful Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game is by having a game that really encourages social play and encourages people to find online friends, joining guilds.  That’s the glue that keeps players coming back to play your game over and over again.  So we want to make sure that our guilds are very successful.  So one of our plans was to have this early launch of the guild program so players could form their guilds way before the game launches, and therefore, they can have their groups together and they’ll already be ready.  It’s something that other companies haven’t done yet and we felt, “Hey it’s just a little innovation in guilds.” [We talked a little about certain aspects of the guild pre-launch.  James wasn’t able to elaborate on specific details such as how BioWare will address some guilds’ concerns about caps on number of members per guild, or how guilds will react to having their server chosen for them by BioWare, etc.] CRR: Anytime you try to take control away from the player, their first reaction is to say, “Wait a minute!” JO: One thing that we think is really important is to take feedback from our fanbase and make sure that we use that feedback to make the game that they want to play, so if we get a lot of feedback on certain aspects of the game we’re going to make modifications.  If people don’t like something we’re not going to say, “Hey, we’re designers, we know best.” CRR: That brings me to something wonderful I heard yesterday.  Daniel Erickson quoted you, he said, “This is what James Ohlen tells us.  The whole end part of the product is just polish.  Everything that you have for a philosophy, and everything that you think as a designer that you think is right, is now wrong.  The players are the ones that are right.”  Can you explain what you meant by that? JO: When you’re at the home stretch, you have to make a lot of painful decisions.  You don’t have unlimited resources.  You don’t have unlimited time.  You have to make adjustments if you’re going to make the game better.  So you have to put aside your ego and you have to just use the feedback from the data you’re getting to use the limited resources and time you have to make the best changes in the game you can.  I have the most power over decisions on the game on the project, but I try to limit myself as much as I can because I know that if I make some decision that I care about, I’m taking away resources that we could, for example, use to make adjustments that a huge percentage of our fans would think would make the game better. So that’s really what it’s about, it’s about making sure that you’re making adjustments to the game that the fans and the players are going to see have the biggest impact and make the game better for them. CRR: This past summer a lot of the talk was about how choice matters and you make these decisions in flashpoints and things change and don’t stay the same.  Now we’re talking about repeatability.  Is that one of the things that maybe changed a little bit from your original idea?

Join the discussion on our forums here. In our continuing quest to have all the people we met at PAX East on the show, we invited Eric Musco from TOROcast to join us as we talk about TOROcast’s beginnings, account security, and PvP.  We also find out that Eric is a weird mix of good manners and touchiness in this week’s Sith or Jedi Test. Fact or Fiction: Can you pick out the confirmed fact from the tall tales?  This week’s host challenge involves the UK gameplay event, Younglings, and Imperial Agent abilities. From the Newsnet & Beyond: Roundup of the most important announcements and news. * Fri Update 3/25: Jedi Armor Progression video.  Is Kathy hallucinating or is she just more observant than everyone else? * Deceived on sale March 22nd.  Eric can’t get enough of Darth Malgus.  Kathy shows her latent Sith side when it comes to children who irritate her. * UK Community Event, London.  Stephen Reid announces a surprise community gameplay opportunity. * Friday Update 4/1: BioWare’s April Fool’s update may be a joke, but it still has some actual mini-reveals, says Stephen Reid.  Larry Everett does a roundup of the gaming industry’s April Fool’s jokes in his article for Massively. * David Bass gives encouragement to guilds who are having trouble recruiting during this pre-launch phase.  He is less encouraging but extremely sympathetic in another thread devoted to oceanic guilds. * Beware of game testing invite scams!  Allison Berryman warns of scams and explains the real process of getting invited here.  Eric reminds everyone of the dangers of clicking on links in emails.  Will SWTOR avoid the account hackery that happened in RIFT? QUICK MENTIONS * Damion Schubert tells us lightsaber colors will be determined by crystal, not your class. * Damion Schubert confirms dueling will be in SWTOR. * Damion Schubert explains some gear will be class only. * Eric’s must-read article on rolling Need/Greed in an MMO here.  Watch WoW parody “Ninja Raiders” music video set to Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” here (“If you liked it then you shoulda rolled Need on it.”). Sith or Jedi? We find out which path we walk in real life with The Test of the Restaurant Door. Community Buzz Servers, PvP * Official forums discussion on separate mechanics for PvP and PvE here. * Auto-facing poll/discussion on official forums

Larry Everett of Massively and Gamebreaker TV joins Carla, Kathy, and Roxanne this week as we do a final PAX clean-up discussion and spend quite a bit of time talking about guilds, companions and the trinity, and space combat.  We also find out that Larry is a little confused by the Smuggler healing animation. Fact or Fiction: Can you pick out the confirmed fact from the tall tales?  This week’s host challenge covers friendly fire, Miraluka, and space combat. From the Newsnet & Beyond: Roundup of the most important announcements and news * Wed Update 3/09: GUILDS.  We debate who the pre-launch registration system is more useful for and Carla is sad that the questions on the application can’t be changed.  Kathy, Roxanne, and Carla have guilds picked out, while Larry is weighing his options.  Guild FAQ page here.  Guild Headquarters here. * Friday Update 3/11: Fate of the Galaxy trailer * Friday Update 3/11: Taral V Developer Walkthrough.  Don’t watch this if you want to beat the flashpoint! * PAX East space combat demo at PAX East looks beautiful, but Carla still doesn’t like space combat. * PAX East panel, “Interactive Drama: Dialogue as Gameplay” with Daniel Erickson.  Listen to hour-long audio here. * CRR PAX East interview with Daniel Erickson.  Daniel corrects our Sith or Jedi test and gives props to Roxanne for beating Taral V. * Friday Update 3/18: Fan Friday.  Check out Redding’s artwork here.  The best fan art we’ve seen. * Friday Update 3/18: Fan Site Spotlight.  TORWars.  These guys have a unique retro feel to them.  Check out their podcast here. * Friday Update 3/18: Polls!  Vote on your favorite spaceship here.  Vote on your favorite set of smilies here. * Friday Update 3/18: Cinematic Animation with Andrew Lauretta.  Andrew talks motion cap and hand animation here. * Friday Update 3/18: Community Q& A with Jesse Sky.  Many useful questions about flashpoints answered here. Quick Mentions * Damion Schubert talks about the solo gamer at GDC.  Read article at Massively here. * Miraluka can be Jedi Consulars, Daniel Erickson says. * Damion Schubert tells us we don’t have to worry about friendly fire. * Stephen Reid did not have dinner at Morton’s Steakhouse with random forums user. Sith of Jedi? We find out which path we walk in real life in The Test of The E...