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New trailer teases space update for Star Wars: The Old Republic
For quite a while now, the Star Wars: The Old Republic space project has been spoken of only in whispers. Fans have been waiting and looking, but what exactly the project is has been a mystery inside a cipher wrapped in an enigma. But the dev team has revealed a bit more during the most recent stop of the game's community tour. The trailer raises more questions, but it opens the door for more rooted speculation. What's clear from the narration is that both the Imperial and Republic fleets are preparing for a major offensive. The footage itself, however, suggests some high-speed dogfighting with the standard Imperial and Republic fighter craft. Will this be a form of space-based PvP? Missions that include free-form flight? Personalized ship exteriors? It's impossible to know just yet, but you can check out the trailer past the cut to form your own opinions on what this means. [Thanks to Jose for the tip!]
Notch making Elite-inspired space-based trading sim/sandbox title
It looks like Notch has decided which of his three ongoing projects to focus on over the summer: The designer is currently working on a "sandbox space trading sim" similar to the 1984 classic Elite, with one key difference. Rather than exclusively piloting a spaceship around space, the player will also be able to explore different areas of their ship. "I want the space game that's more like Firefly," Notch told PCGamer. "I want to run around on my ship and have to put out a fire. Like, oh crap, the cooling system failed, I have to put out the fire here." The game is being developed with a Minecraft mentality, in that it'll most likely be playable before its finished, which is good considering that we want to get our greasy little hands on it as soon as humanly possible.
New York planetarium to host 200-player space game tonight (video)
Got plans for this evening? Cancel them now, and do everything you can to sneak into New York's Museum of Natural History. Because tonight, the museum's planetarium will play host to a 200-person space game, courtesy of Brooklyn's Babycastles arcade. It's all part of the museum's "Cosmic Cocktails and Space Arcade" evening -- an event that seems tailor made for anyone interested in cosmology, humans, and/or hallucinogens. The showcase of the soiree is the Space Cruiser game, which promises to turn the ceiling of the Rose Center for Earth and Space into a "living, breathing, space ship where participants navigate around a beautiful fictitious universe." With the Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt assuming the tripartite role of ship captain-navigator-narrator, the game apparently begins with the birth of the universe, before transporting visitors across new galaxies and through time-bending wormholes. The ship launches at 6:30 PM tonight, but unfortunately, tickets are already sold out. Head past the break, though, for a rather "duuuude"-inducing video.
Hyperspace Beacon: Star Wars Galaxies 2
It happens all the time: When a new game is coming out we attempt to compare it to something familiar. "Jumpgate Evolution is like EVE combined with Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed." "Guild Wars 2's battles are scalable like Warhammer's." Even Rich Vogel, the Executive Producer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, couldn't get away from comparing his crafting system to an existing MMO when we interviewed him at E3. "It will be very similar to what WoW has," is what he said. Granted, Blaine Christine later set our minds at ease at PAX: "I think it's a different take on crafting than what people will be expecting. It's not the standard implementation." Unfortunately, the stigma of comparison was already there. One of my favorite features of MMO creation is the fact that there are no real rules regarding gameplay style. Granted, in the early days of MMO design, a creator had to consider the heavy latency of dial-up connections, so most games were designed to be turn-based. However, now there really is no limit to gameplay style, so there are no rules regarding what makes a game an MMO besides its having a persistent online world. There are no rules that say a game must have similar gameplay to other games that came before, even a prequel. Guild Wars 2 is a great example of this, yet people, inevitably, are going to attempt to compare Guild Wars and its sequel -- sometimes to the point of being unfair about it. Current Star Wars fans cannot help but compare SWTOR to Star Wars Galaxies. Follow me after the break as I make an attempt to debunk this stigma.
A significant update on Jumpgate Evolution's progress
NetDevil's Scott Brown has emerged from the black depths of development on Jumpgate Evolution to give an update to the commmunity. In fact, he's given quite a substantial -- if not brief -- update about the various game elements being hammered into proper working order. The topics covered are Battlespace, mission structure, faction definition and improvements being made to the previously lackluster enemy AI. So basically, NetDevil has been working to revamp the game ever since its June 2009 release date was changed into a To Be Announced state, leaving fans wondering when they'd be able to get their space fighter action on. We've posted Scott's bullet point update beyond the break, for those interested.
