Wednesday, September 4, 2013

What we know about SWTOR's new Space System

Welcome to day two of Space Week!  Yesterday, we watched the video teaser that BioWare put out at PAX Prime.  Just in case you missed it, here it is again...





Video.  The video is pretty short, and does not actually show the UI.  That makes it tough to tell what is a cut scene.  Near the end though, there is gameplay footage!

  • Capital Ships.  There are several shots of capital ships.  They might just be decoration/structures though.
  • Satellites.  A satellite gets blown up.  This could be some sort of PvE content inside what is believe to be a PvP area.  This also ties into some of the data mined information.
  • Locations.  There appear to be stations.  These could be objectives which sides will fight over.  



Data Mined.  Back in late June I wrote an article for TORWars about some interesting space-related findings. We also have some more data-mined information from Reddit.  It's important to note that we lack context for a lot of this, but we can make some good guesses.

  • Freeflight!  No more on-the rails gameplay?
  • Multiple types of space craft.  Looks like there will be light/medium/heavy versions.  
  • Destroyers.  Looks like capital ships might play a role in the new system.
  • PvP. Most of the data suggests it will be a PvP area.
  • Satellite.  There are entries about Satellites, which we may have seen in the video. 
  • Objectives.  There are a couple lines mentioning Imperial and Republic Objectives.
So that's what I have managed to piece together so far.  If I had to guess at what it could all mean, I'd say it's a space based warzone.  Just the way the ships entered the battlefield really makes me think it is an instance.