Wow. I've been MIA for a while... notes haven't been posted for a month and a half. I shouldn't be AS busy...
General Notes-New Guild Headquarters launch! Tbone had been really hoping this was coming down the tubes. David Bass had been hinting at this for a while and it was released on a Wednesday, which is weird. Tbone had the day off and we were able to get everything going right away. Good job EVERYONE on getting on there so fast. It shows how good our communication system is as well as how active everyone is. At the end of the first day we were the largest populated Republic Guild. Very, very impressive.
-Now we are number 19, which is still amazing, considering there are over 10,000 Republic Guilds!
-New button on the toolbar to get right to the SWTOR Guild HQ. Obviously we have our own forums, so we won't be using the private forums.
-Keep an eye on the public forum for posts from others!
-IF YOU ARE LISTED AS UNDECIDED, CHANGE TO A SPECIFIC CLASS.
-Most people are JK/JC, which is in line with the rest of the community.
-PAX East was this weekend. There is a shit ton of content available in the PAX East thread.
-Jaypee and Venlar were at the event, they'll tell us more about it later.
-Fun fact of the day: We broke the record for number of users online, which was during Victoriah's interview... Nice, guys, nice.
-New Trailer which was hella cool. Be sure to check it out! It's all gameplay footage, too. It's really, really cool. They also posted a Taral V walkthrough, Flashpoint shown at PAX East. Good videos posted on PAX East thread. It was a level 31 Flashpoint and was dumbed down so that people wouldn't get annihilated.
-Recommended videos: The ones that showed off Tatooine and Hutta. Daniel Erickson narrates. Very Star Wars looking planets with many open spaces.
-Space Combat videos showcased as well. Very similar to Star Fox in terms of gameplay. Paitryn played it and he said that it was a lot of fun, even if it is a tunnel shooter.
-Sith Warrior Origin videos show difference between the two videos. The new build is SO MUCH more polished than the old leaked version from leakerz.net. It's just absolutely amazing the difference.
-Tython looks incredible. The person playing is a 10-year old, so it's really painful to watch, but you get to see Tython. There are still many videos that haven't been posted on the forums, but we've tried to get the best videos possible.
-A lot of information and interviews were also done there.
-Guild stuff: Guild Capital ships in at release or shortly after. COLOR MATCHING!! We don't know what that means, but the implication is is that it'll make all the armour look decent together (IE blue shirt, red pants would be made to match) or it could mean you get to choose the colors.
-Tbone is still sifting through other information; we'll link it after the interview.
-They're also looking at different mobile apps to somehow connect you to the game - we'll see what that turns into.
-The guild system is now implemented in SWTOR... meaning GUILDS ARE CURRENTLY TESTING IN SWTOR RIGHT NOW WHICH IS BULLSHIT.
-Still no SWTOR release date: Still just 2011. If anything, they'll give us a release date the EARLIEST at E3.
-Our recruitment thread has been posted in a lot more - GOOD JOB! This is a good thing for us - we've had a lot of traffic on our site as well.
-There are 10,000 Republic Guilds. Over 20 new pages of Republic guilds in the Recruitment forum have been created since last Wednesday. There is SO MUCH traffic on those forums that if our Recruitment thread isn't bumped every other hour, it fades to the third or fourth page VERY QUICKLY. CONTINUE TO POST ON IT-Phase 2 of the guild recruitment is being able to choose 3 Allies and Adversaries so that you're on the same server as those other guilds. Be looking at potential guilds that we could ally up and be adversaries with.
-Eternal Vigilance is a good group to be an ally with. They were the first group to finish the challenge and were great to us when we first launched.
-Revan's Legacy could be a potential Adversary. They only have three or four members on their guild HQ right now, but we'll see how many they eventually have.
-Collective are operating as a Republic guild. Tbone doesn't know if we'll be able to work with them.
-Tbone's schedule is going to get crazy. He has a day and a night job now. He won't have a free day or evening. Monday evenings will be the only night he has off.
-He'll still be around occasionally, just not as much as he has been recently.
-We've updated the beginning of the Challenge. Please be sure to test it to make sure that we've ironed out any last minute bugs. Revalis has been great in helping. It clarifies and hooks people into the story. Very interactive at the beginning rather than making people wonder if it's working. We want to go live with this later this week.
-Other changes: furiousangels.com website. Trying to incorporate Orders into the main website, including the videos. Yotogi is working on that. He's on vacation this week, but home, so he should hopefully be able to get that done this week as well.
-We should be in a good place for a while once this is all done. Tbone is liking the way everything is coming together in a more uniform way.
-Games people are playing: Dragon Age 2; it's a lot of fun, according to Tbone. He spent his entire weekend playing it. Combat is a lot more fun. Champions Online is another crowd pleaser. Victoriah and Arch are playing, as well as League of Legends. Sometimes we'll have more visitors than we do members because everyone and their mother is playing LOL. haha.
-Jaypee's impressions:-Friday: One of the first 20 to get in line, got in line early for TOR. Had to wait an hour or two back. 45 minute gameplay sessions a piece.
-Developers were walking around the entire time to talk to people.
-Hal Hood talked with Jaypee, who wrote the story of Taral V. Difficulties of multiplayer dialogue, his favorite lines (sarcastic humor).
-Jaypee played a Smuggler, cover system was very fluid and jumping cover to cover was really easy. Anyone familiar with any MMO mechanics will find it very easy to get into.
-Jaypee had a small bug, DC'd before the last boss, but got a free hat out of it.
-Line was packed, so anyone not in line couldn't play.
-Daniel Erickson threw Jaypee a hat. Mentioned FA, said he didn't handle too much guild stuff.
-David Bass immediately recognized our name. Impressed at how fast we got into the Guild HQ, and asked him what he thought of the system.
-Saturday: The press beat everyone else to the game, even though Jaypee got there early.
-Sunday: FIRST in line with his buddies. Jaypee got interviewed. While in line, ran into one of the members of FoE, one of the main Sith guilds.
-Jaypee was very vocal, acted spastic. Talked to half of the line about TOR. Played Trooper Vanguard; didn't like it and personally won't play it. Ammo system was "aggravating". If you have any questions, ask him about it.
-First group on Sunday to beat the Boss. Got two posters for his efforts. Got Republic and Empire posters, both the T-shirts.
-Meet and Greet was fantastic. Was in the 2nd session, talked with a World Developer Eric Young. Developed Coruscant and talked about how bad-ass it is to work with Bioware and his creative freedom in terms of Lucas licensing.
-Also talked with Allison Barryman and how she got into the career.
-Daniel Erickson right before the event ended, Lore questions. LORE BOMB/SPOILER ALERT. Ask Jaypee if you're really interested regarding Satile (sp?)
-Venlar's Impressions:-Was only there for one day.
-Didn't get to play the Flashpoint. Overslept.
-Community Liaison David came up to him, made Venlar the end of the line. It was around 5pm and he came up to Venlar, saying they don't know whether they're going to get to everyone.
-Allowed him to play the origin worlds. Clicked to create a character. Every single race was available for Jedi Knight!
-Played Jedi Knight, Zaarbrik Female. Saw a decent amount of Tython. Started off as JK, skipped any tutorial. Started when Fleshraiders are attacking the settlement. "Really impressed", the most well polished MMO I've ever played. AND ITS STILL NOT DONE YET. Had high expectations already.
-Get through the dialogue, jumps on speeder, starts up with the combat. Very smooth, has auto-look. Similar feeling to the combat in Dragon Age II. No auto-attack in SWTOR. Animations are exceptional.
-Only ran into one bug where an enemy was frozen in place, un-interactible. No big deal.
-Was able to sit next to the Dark Knight, well known member of the community. Mentioned FA to him and Bass.
-Gameplay: Got through a few different quests, freed a few Padawans from the Fleshraiders. Got sent to a cave, had to clear the cave, found someone who was commanding the flesh raiders, had a big dialogue sequence, then Venlar kicked his ass.
-Went back to Jedi Temple, Jedi Master was beginning to lay things out for him and he was told his time was up.
-Graphics, playability: VERY impressed. The whole experience was a lot of fun, worth waiting for hours. Managed to catch quick Q&A, talked about the guild ships, storyline stuff (Emperor of the Sith, didn't give much away. Character you'll eventually meet in-game.)
-Venlar plugged Live Events in an attempt to talk about FA, asked about it at the Q&A. Ran out of time before they could answer.
-Origin worlds are not instanced, thank God. It's not a solo experience. Did notice that when you see another character in-game, you see a Title/Rank IE Padawan, so it could potentially be another way to see people's Rank in-game.
-The questing felt like it was on an entirely different level in terms of interactivity, will definitely be even more important as you progress further and further in the game. Decisions really DO have an impact on the Game.
If you have any further questions, they'll be in TS to talk to whenever.