E3 - Jamion Report

I have been extremely busy recently and extremely tired. Hoping to get back on the horse of writing here sometime soon.

Monday at E3 we learned a buntch the most exciting of which was Star Wars: The Old Republic theatrical game trailer. Which is a must watch for any Star Wars fan.

We also learned of new Microsoft products including Splinter Cell and Modern Warfare. Microsoft also talked about their adaptation of Xbox Live with social networking sites Twitter and Facebook. But the most impressive feature from the Microsoft side was the announcement of Project Natal and the first look into how this piece of technology tracks motion, facial recognition, and voice recognition; allowing a player to use and play the Xbox with out any controller. They also talked about a semi-sentient fully responsive AI named Milo who uses the Natal to allow people to interact with him, including sharing ideas, drawings, and carrying on an intelligent conversation.

EA also has their presscon today and talked about their EA for Girls collection, EA sports, and then stuff that wasn't generally mocked by the online community. Including BioWare's new Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2. Ea also talked about a new only project they are working on called APB, which resembles a GTA online.

But finally the stage was dazzled with Jedi and Sith as BioWare talked Star Wars The Old Republic. Including info on Smuggler class (introduced this week). One of the most compelling things they talked about for TOR was immersion and to create this using complete voice acting that will be unique for each NPC and PC. That's right characters will have unique voices (or say they claim).

TOR will have it's own press conference on Wednesday June 3rd at 3:00 PM PDT, gamespot and EA (I do believe) will both have coverage of the event. And I encourage everyone to tune in.

http://g4tv.com/videos/38637/Star_Wars_The_Old_Republic_Trailer_Presentation_at_E3_09/

This is the announcement ceremony from G4, simply incredible. I was not there in person... Sad unfortunately, still trying to work out a way I can go to PAX this year. But I have been watching it live all day Smile

Romans read the smuggler article to get a feel of how varied the combat will be from a conventional MMO setting.

Also check out the Holonet.

I will be posting more on Wednesday and maybe tomorrow (depending on how much I can watch while working).

Watch the Microsoft Presscon in full on Gamespot... include Project Natal demo and Milo. Warning it's almost 2 hrs long.

http://e3.gamespot.com/press-conference/microsoft-e3/

DVice has put out a video of just the Natal system. http://dvice.com/archives/2009/06/microsoft-unvei-1.php

Also Milo from a youtube vid (not good sound quality... but will creep you out as much as it has me)

Nintendo presscon in a little over 2 hrs now at gamespot, going to try to sneak in watching it at work here.

Hereogar wrote:
Is this new starwars thing one where everyone's a jedi?

Personally, I couldn't think of anything more boring if it was.


No just me, I am the only Jedi in the game... the rest of you play smugglers and troopers.


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Later that day...

Nothing really interesting from nintendo, took a look at new wii and DS products coming out, nothing really phenomenal. Sony had some cool stuff in including the PSP Go, but nothing on the Aino yet Sad Sony also talked about its new wand system that is going to be designed to compete with the Wii-mote. Unfortunately cause of work I was watching them off and on so didn't see everything, both presscons should be on http://e3.gamespot.com soon though, where we all can watch them. But so far Microsoft's presscon has looked the best out of all of them, which is a little sad, because I like PS3 over Xbox...

Also once again TOR presscon is supposed to be 2mro although 1up said it is today they seem to be the only ones saying that... I'll keep my eyes open tonight, but pretty sure CRMP Sean told us it was Wednesday...and as he in charge of that stuff I figure he knows best.

For those of you wondering how gameplay in TOR will work gamespot posted this just a while ago http://e3.gamespot.com/story/6210951/star-wars-the-old-republic-impressions-combat-bounty-hunters-smugglers-and-gameplay?tag=top_stories;story;1

As to the MS thing, they had a multiple person game going in the video and they showed to people working at the paint project in the live demo, so looks like it will so at least four people. Apparently the dev kit went out to third party people today for them to start working with it.

Sony's most impressive development... their wii-mote knock off. http://dvice.com/archives/2009/06/sony-unveils-mo.php

Square Enix's Project Rapture, announced about a year ago, has been confirmed at FFXIV. http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/

Hopefully a bit more conventional then FFXI... liked that game but hated the controls, and thus stopped playing with in a day.

good gosh, why does Square Enix always have to have loud music on their game sites...

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Also James Cameron talks about his intertwined movie/game Avatar http://e3.gamespot.com/story/6211102/james-camerons-avatar-the-game-first-impressions
I like his idea... but not sure how it will work... bit confused.

My faith in BioWare's TOR got cracked a little today, they seem to be following EA's press tricks which ticked me off.

They have been keeping the forums filled with info about time slots and a demo that will showcase 20-30mins of class footage and then one of these flashpoint missions, and have been talking about showing this demo on Gamespot and IGN... unfortunately, and to both the surprise of the fans and the interviewers, that didn't happen. So no real look into TOR atm. Sean has been apologetic about this on the swtor.com forums and has promised the demo soon, but he also said he doesn't know when soon will be; but they will eventually get it on the site. When this happens I will probably update the TOR section here with info, but at this point it looks like it's going to be at least 3 weeks probably a good 2 months (my guessing).


So what we learned about TOR from E3:
New Cinematic!
Smuggler class is official, and has interesting combat tactics
Trooper and Bounty Hunter look nice and show choice in game
Jar'kai is in, at least in some form
Flashpoint/group choice is reflected across all group (so we are probably going to see groups specifically designed for good,evil,neutral)*
No Auto-attack
Implied standard MMO hotbar for skills


*expanding on this choice seems to be a voting system inside a mission, and then the group ends up going with majority of votes. So if you want to be good don't get in a group of people who want to be evil, as their choice will out way yours and you will get evil points.

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Ok so I don't know if anyone cares about Brutal Legend, and I will not play it; but it is looking awesome, especially for an EA game. Apparently Activision, who dumped the game originally, thinks so too. They are now sueing EA over the release of the game, saying they have the right to release the game not EA. http://e3.gamespot.com/story/6211542/activision-sues-over-brutal-legend-report
This is really sad... not as sad as the worlds.com lawsuit over who has priority right to all 'mmo' labeled content... but still sad.

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http://e3.gamespot.com/story/6211529/dc-universe-online-hands-on-and-video-demo?tag=news;title;next

DCUO footage, for those that don't know, I am in the Champions Online beta; and DC Universe Online is coming out after CO. DCUO beta is going to start in the next couple months and it looks good. I am interested in seeing the parallels and diversities between the two games. I don't think I will play either long term, and I have both my praises and complaints for CO, which when I feel I can get away with it I will post a CO report here on the forums from beta experiences.

For those that don't know Atari/Cryptic didn't display this year, nor did NCSoft/NCWest/ArenaNet (but this is because they are dividing the company in 2 atm). Which really ticked me off as Cryptic is working on Star Trek Online and Champions Online, and NCSoft is coming out with Aion, Lineage 3, and Guild Wars 2.

When it comes to superhero MMOs City of Heroes/Villains (CoX) is the only major game out. CO will blow this game away as far as comparative to the capabilities, DCUO is also coming out and will probably do the same, however the 4 power limit sort shuns me from DCUO (as does the SOE marque on it). Marvel (who originally dumped Cryptic) is also starting early early work on a Marvel Universe Online with the company that is making Jumpgate Evolution... nothing against them, but after the stunt with Cryptic I hope that Marvel's game gets royally screwed.

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That surmises my E3 information